Selections from the works of Fourier

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SELECTIONS FROM THE WORKS OF FOURIER

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CONTENTS

PACM

INTRODUCTION 9

PART 1

CHAP.

I. THEODICY -- 47

II. SOCIAL EVOLUTION - - - • f - "SO

"IIL OF THE RÔLE OF THE PASSIONS " - * * 55

IV. OF EDUCATION 67

V. OF THE CONDITION OF WOMEN - - - - 76

PART 11

VI. OF THE VICES OF CIVILISATION - - - - 82

VII. OF COMMERCE -------98

VIII. OF AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION - - - - I09

IX. OF MANUFACTURING PRODUCTION - - - - I18

PART 111

X. OF ASSOCIATION I20

XI. THE COMMUNAL COUNTING-HOUSE - - - - I30

XII. THE PHALANSTERY 137

^ XIII. SERIES AND GROUPS 155

XIV. ATTRACTIVE LABOUR .... 1 63

8 Contents

CHAP. PAGB

XV. LITTLE HORDES (lES PETITES HORDES) - - " I?!

XVI. DOMESTIC SERVICE 177

XVII. INDUSTRIAL ARMIES 1 79

XVIIL DISTRIBUTION l8l

XIX. GUARANTEE OF THE MINIMUM - - - - I90

XX. OF LUXURY AND SAVING 1 93

XXI. OF THE FUSION OF CLASSES 1 99

XXII. OF DUTIES TOWARDS ANIMALS .... 203

XXIIL OF THE EQUILIBRIUM OF POPULATION - - - 205

INTRODUCTION

More than one of our readers perhaps will be somewhat
scandalised to see the name of Fourier enter into this collec-
tion,^ following upon that of Adam Smith, of J. B. Say, of
Ricardo: — ^but no one^ surely, will be more surprised than
Fourier himself would have been, had he been able to behold
himself in such company. He professed, in fact, for all econo-
mists (whom, indeed, with the exception of J. B. Say, he appears
not to have read), and for political economy itself, a supreme
contempt, and he classed this science, along with metaphysics,
moral philosophy, and politics, under the head of the "four
uncertain sciences," an epithet which really implies nothing very
dishonourable ; but neither is it one altogether undeserved.

Everybody knows Fourier by name; nobody has read his
books: consequently, although almost a contemporary, he
already belongs to a legendary world. Cham's albums of
caricature, which represent him with a tail having an eye at
its extremity, Louis Reybaud's "Etudes sur les Réformateurs
modernes," inspired by somewhat the same spirit, some words
of his vocabulary, which by their oddity impressed themselves
upon the vûmâL-^halansÛrey papillonne^ cabaliste, Pattraction
passionelle — : these are about the only records by which the
public has been able to form an idea of Fourier, and this idea
may be summed up in two words : he was a socialist of the worst
type, that is, of the communist type, and a madman.

And I may add that those who perchance might have the
courage to go back to Fourier's books themselves, would find
themselves rather confirmed in their unflattering opinion, at
least if they consulted the original editions, and if they stopped
at a first examination. And indeed the sight of those enormous
^ The Guillanmin, " Petite Bibliothèque Economique." — Tr.

a-

/I

•

CONTENTS

PAGtf

INTRODUCTION 9

PART 1

CHAP.

I. THEODICY -- 47

II. SOCIAL EVOLUTION - - - - f - 'SO

"IIL OF THE RÔLE OF THE PASSIONS - - " - 55

IV. OF EDUCATION 67

V. OF THE CONDITION OF WOMEN - - - - 76

PART II

VI. OF THE VICES OF CIVILISATION - - - - 82

VII. OF COMMERCE -------98

VIII. OF AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION - - - - I09

IX. OF MANUFACTURING PRODUCTION - - - - I18

PART III

X. OF ASSOCIATION I20

XL THE COMMUNAL COUNTING-HOUSE - - - - 1 3©

XII. THE PHALANSTERY 137

•» XIII. SERIES AND GROUPS 155

XIV. ATTRACTIVE LABOUR - - - -

8 Contents

CHAP. PAGE

XV. LITTLE HORDES (lES PETITES HORDES) - - " I7I

XVI. DOMESTIC SERVICE I77

.XVII. INDUSTRIAL ARMIES 179

XVIIL DISTRIBUTION l8l

XIX. GUARANTEE OF THE MINIMUM - - - - I90

XX. OF LUXURY AND SAVING 193

XXI. OF THE FUSION OF CLASSES 1 99

XXII. OF DUTIES TOWARDS ANIMALS . - - - 203

XXIIL OF THE EQUILIBRIUM OF POPULATION - - - 205

INTRODUCTION

More than one of our readers perhaps will be somewhat
scandalised to see the name of Fourier enter into this collec-
tion,^ following upon that of Adam Smith, of J. B. Say, of
Ricardo: — but no one, surely, will be more surprised than
Fourier himself would have been, had he been able to behold
himself in such company. He professed, in fact, for all econo-
mists (whom, indeed, with the exception of J. B. Say, he appears
not to have read), and for political economy itself, a supreme
contempt, and he classed this science, along with metaphysics,
moral philosophy, and politics, under the head of the " four
uncertain sciences," an epithet which really implies nothing very
dishonourable ; but neither is it one altogether undeserved.

Everybody knows Fourier by name; nobody has read his
books: consequently, although almost a contemporary, he
already belongs to a legendary world. Cham's albums of
caricature, which represent him with a tail having an eye at
its extremity, Louis Reybaud's "Etudes sur les Réformateurs
modernes," inspired by somewhat the same spirit, some words
of his vocabulary, which by their oddity impressed themselves
upon the mind— -pAa/ansfère, papillonney cabaliste^ Pattraction
passionelle — : these are about the only records by which the
public has been able to form an idea of Fourier, and this idea
may be summed up in two words : he was a socialist of the worst
type, that is, of the communist type, and a madman.

And I may add that those who perchance might have the
courage to go back to Fourier's books themselves, would find
themselves rather confirmed in their unflattering opinion, at
least if they consulted the original editions, and if they stopped
at a first examination. And indeed the sight of those enormous
1 The Guillaumin, «* Petite Bibliothèque Économique."— Tr.

lo Selections from the Works of Fourier

volumes, without table of contents, without consecutive paging,
that intentional absence of all plan (what he proudly termed
"dispersed order" — ^^ V ordre dispersé^^ — and which it were more
proper to term incoherent order), those headings of chapters
or paragraphs which bear the titles of ^^ pivot direct ^^ or ^^ pivot
inverse^^ of " dsUgomlne^^^ " intermlde^^ and, quite at the end, of
" introduction " ; those pages where right in the midst of things
the justification changes all of a sudden without our being able
to discover why, and upon which it seems as though the printer
had emptied all the letters of his case pell-mell ; those X's and
Y's which appear to dance a veritable saraband, now standing
upright, now lying flat, now with heads drooped, — all this gives
the impression of some conjuring book of a necromancer written
in some very fabulous age.

It was not, therefore, a useless task to present to the public an
abbreviated and, so to speak, a civilised edition (if I may be
allowed to use an expression which our author would have found
so distasteful !) of the works of Fourier. Either we are greatly
deceived, or those who will read it will find a very different
Fourier from the one they had represented to themselves. If they
find a socialist, — and we shall take care not to rob him of this
title : to do so would be to belittle him, — they will see at least
that no one was more liberal than this socialist, and that his
doctrines differed toto orbe from those of the communist school.
If they find, besides, evidences of madness, — and neither would
we wish to disguise this feature : to do that would be to disfigure
him, — they will at least be able to assure themselves that it was
an amiable madness, nibbing against wisdom at every step,
abounding in keen and ingenious observations — which indeed is
often the case with madmen ; — and, what is more surprising, they
will find indicated a greater number of practical reforms which
are capable of realisation, — some of them are indeed already
realised, — than may be met with in the works of any socialist or
even of any economist whatsoever.

Introduction 1 1

Charles Fourier ^ was born at Besançon, on the yth of April,
1772 ; he died in Paris on the 7th of October, 1837. His whole
biography might, if necessary, be condensed into these two lines ;
it was not, in fact, distinguished by any memorable occurrence.
Fourier did not instigate any conspiracies, like Gracchus Babceuf ;
— he did not follow the advice of Saint Simon " to lead during
the whole of the vigorous period of manhood the most original
and active life possible," and did not, like him, lead the life of a
grand seigneur ; — he had not, like Owen, the reputation of a great
philanthropist, and did not, like him, give audience to princes
and to emperors ; — he did not go to America to found a republic
of Icaria like Cabet ; — he did not dazzle his contemporaries, like
Lassalle, by an adventurous life and a romantic end ; — he was
not even, like Karl Marx, the president of an International ; — no,
he led the most prosaic life imaginable : that of a commercial
traveller. Broker or clerk by turns in the cloth houses of
Marseilles, Rouen, oftenest at Lyons, and, the last ten years of
his life, at Paris, he terms himself a " shop-sergeant " {sergent de
boutique) ^ and complains of not having had leisure for study.*
And, indeed, when we consider that Fourier obtained all his
intellectual and scientific education in reading-rooms which he

* In his first work, " Les Quatre Mouvements," Fourier wrote his name
with two r's, but in all his other writings he adopted the orthography now
known.

2 ** God has willed . . . that the 'Theory of Universal Movement'
(* Théorie du Mouvement Universel ') should fall to the share of an illiterate
man {sic). It is a shop-sergeant who will confound those political and moral
libraries, Shameful fruit of ancient and modem charlatanry. Ah ! it is not the
first time that God has made use of the humble to abase the proud, and that
He has chosen the most obscure man to bring to the world the most important
message." — ** Quatre Mouvements," p. 151.

* " It is well to recall, now and then, that since the year 1799, when I dis-
covered the germ of the calculus of Attraction, I have always been absorbed
by my mercantile occupations, being hardly able to devote a few moments to
passional problems [problèmes passionels), one of which often demands the
continued research of several years. After passing my days in serving the
knavery of merchants, and stupefying or brutalising myself by deceitful and
degrading duties, I could not occupy the night in initiating myself in the true
sciences. — ** Manuscrits," 1851, p. 23.

12 Selections from the Works of Fourier

visited in his spare moments, we cease to be astonished at the
extravagance of his style or the fancifulness of his theories, and
marvel rather at the abundance and, in general, the correctness
of his classical citations, as well as at his intuition of the
phenomena of Nature.

Fourier never married. He retained to the last all the habits
and the passions of an old bachelor, — perhaps I should rather
say, for his passions were very innocent ones, of an old maid.
He was devoted to cats, flowers ; he appreciated good living ; he
loved to follow regiments of soldiers through the streets, to keep
time to the sound of military music ; he spent long hours watching
the soldiers drill, not from any warlike taste, for no man had a
more pacific nature, but from a love of uniforms, plumes, evolu-
tions conducted scientifically. He was precise to excess in the
arrangement of his life. "To-day, Candlemas, I have written
twenty thirty-sixths of my book." Every day he came home upon
the stroke of noon, because that was the hour he had set to meet
capitalists who might be disposed to try his system, — and he
awaited them punctually until his death. It has been said that
he adored children. That is altogether inaccurate. He declares,
on the contrary, upon every occasion, that they are insupportable
creatures : his fastidious nature revolts against their noise, their
disorder, their chattering. It is true that he allots them a very
large place in his phalansteiry, and that he even promises to
nourish them on sweets, but then he really expects, by his system
of education, to transform them into good children who will make
no noise, be made to eat at a separate table, and be put to bed
early.

If I insist upon facts of so intimate a nature, it is because they
exercised a quite decisive influence upon Fourier's conception
and upon the elaboration of his system. They alone can explain
that passion for classing everything into phalanxes, series, groups ;
the enormous place which the kitchen and the theatre occupy in
his system ; that love of order, of symmetry, of labelling things ;
that elaboration of the most insignificant details which give the
world issuing from his brain the oldish, droll look of those little

Introduction 13

Dresden or Chinese figures which we stand on our shelves.
They alone can explain why the ideal of Fourier's dreams greatly
resembles the life of a hotel and of a table d^hôte^ and why the
family, the home, paternal authority, always appeared to him like
useless machinery, nuisances, which ought to be eliminated from
the society of the future.

I should not forgive myself if I failed to add to this biographical
sketch, brief as it is, two features. The first is that Fourier was,
all his life, — not poverty-stricken, he was too regular in his mode
of life to sink into distress, and he always kept his coat carefully
brushed and wore a white necktie, but he was poor ; he earned ^
from 1000 to 1500 francs a year, and he bore this poverty not
only with dignity, but, what is better, with the most perfect
serenity. The second is that, as far as may be judged by anecdotes
related of him, he had in a high degree the spirit of charity, of
true charity, that which hides itself.

Fourier, notwithstanding his preoccupation by his business
duties, wrote an astonishing amount ; he wrote with the regularity
of a writing machine, so many pages a day. In 1808, consequently
at the age of thirty-six, he published his first work, " Théorie des
Quatre Mouvements " ; in 1822, the most important of his works, -
"Traité de l'Association Domestique Agricole"; in 1829, the |
"Nouveau Monde Industriel," and finally in 1835 and 1836, that
is, shortly before his death, "Fausse Industrie." But besides
these four works, which represent about eight volumes, he left a
vast quantity of manuscript, portions of which have been published
since his death, some in a journal, the Phalange^ and some in
a separate volume. All these volumes bear, indeed, a strong
resemblance to each other, especially as each contains the author's
entire system, and exhibits, pell-mell, the same theories, reproduced,
for the most part, in about the same terms; whoever has read
one of them, particularly the " Association Domestique Agricole,"
has read them all.

As we stated in the beginning, these books present themselves
in a most extraordinary guise, such that it earned for its author
the reputation of being a madman who ought to be confined.

14 Selections front the Works of Fourier

There certainly is a good deal of the sensational, — of " puffing,"
as we should say to-day — in all this extravagance, but it is very
difficult to discriminate in his case between what is unconscious
and what is designed. I should not like to take an oath that he
was not in real earnest when he declared : " I alone (sic) shall
have confounded twenty centuries of political imbecility, and it
is to me alone that present and future generations will owe the
initiative of their boundless happiness. Before me, mankind lost
several thousand years by fighting madly against Nature ; I am
the first who has bowed before her, by studying attraction, the
organ of her decrees ; she has deigned to smile upon the only
mortal who has ofiered incense at her shrine ; she has delivered
up all her treasures to me. Possessor of the book of Fate, I
come to dissipate political and moral darkness, and, upon the
ruins of the uncertain sciences, I erect the theory of universal
harmony :

Exegi monumentum sere perennius." ^

But it is difficult to believe that he is not in a manner making
sport of the reader when he writes : " I shall defer until my third
Memoir drawing the picture of combined order and the parallel
between its delights and the afflictions of mind and body of the
civilised. This parallel could not fail to excite the most
unfortunate among them and drive them to despair, if it were not
so circumspectly presented as to deaden its efiect ; it is in order
to accomplish this object that I shall purposely throw an air of
coldness over my first Memoirs. ..." * We are unwilling to
deprive ourselves of the pleasure of regarding this passage in a
humorous light, in which aspect it is altogether charming. And
there are many others in the same tone.

The mad notions of Fourier — man's life prolonged to 144
years " on an average," — the brine of the ocean transformed into
a most agreeable acid taste — lions and sharks making way- for
"anti-lions" and "anti-sharks" of a very domestic nature — the
Pole warmed and rendered fertile by a new aurora borealis, and

I " Théorie des Quatre Mouvements," p. 285, Epilogue.
* " Théorie des Quatre Mouvements," p. 95.

Introduction 15

our planet enriched by four satellites, etc., etc., — are well known ;
but little else indeed is known of him. There have even been
lent to him —it is to the rich only that one lends — some that he
never propounded, for instance the famous story of the tail with
an eye at its extremity which the gravest economists continue to
place upon his back, is a case in point, and a pure myth.^ We
must observe, besides, that, as has been well remarked by M.
Renouvier — the only philosopher who has deigned to accord this
singular genius the attention he deserves ^ — this extravagance
attaches principally to the minutiae of the details, and to the
preciseness of style whereby the author emphasises hypotheses
which ought to be left in a certain vagueness. If, for instance,
he had confined himself to saying that one would in a single day
be able to start from Marseilles, breakfast in Lyons, and dine in
Paris, his prevision would have been considered most remarkable,
but since he adds that the journey will be accomplished "upon
the back of a supple and elastic porter which will be the anti-
lion," we roar with laughter. If he had said simply that people
would some day be able to communicate instantaneously with
each other from one end of the world to the other, it would have
been regarded as a rare display of intellect ; but as he thought
best to particularise by remarking: "A certain vessel leaving
London arrives in China to-day; to-morrow the planet Mars
having been advised of the arrivals and movements of ships by
the astronomers of Asia, will transmit the list to the astronomers
of London," ^ — we shrug our shoulders and treat him as

' We are very glad to avail ourselves of the opportunity to explode this myth
once for all, and that by the testimony of Fourier himself. Fourier says that
the inhabitants of the planets and the ** Solariens" must be endowed with
brilliant faculties denied to the " Terriens, ^^ and he adds : ** I have remarked
that this superiority is due principally to a member of which we are deprived,
and which comprehends the following properties : protection in falling,
powerful weapon, splendid ornament, gigantic strength, infinite dexterity,
co-operation and support in all the bodily motions. In discussing this problem,
journalists devoid of imagination say that the Solariens resemble the demons of
the farce of Saint Anthony, equipped with horns, probosces, claws, and tails ;
and that I wish to create men like this upon our globe ! " This passage is
found in the " Fausse Industrie," vol. ii., p. 5.

* See a series of articles upon the ** Philosophy of Fourier," in the Critique
Philosophique for the year 1883.

• " Unite universeUe," vol. iii., p. 261.

1 6 Selections from the Works of Fourier

an ignoramus. If he had even confined himself to asserting in
general terms that the planets exercise an influence upon the
constitution and the evolution of animals and plants, one would
not, perhaps, be so greatly astonished, but when he tells us that
the planets Juno, Ceres, and Pallas each produce a species of
gooseberry . . . ., that there ought to be a fourth and excellent
kind of which we are deprived because the planet Phoebe (the
moon), which would have generated it, is unfortunately dead,^ —
we cannot marvel sufficiently at an exhibition of such crack-brained
folly! It is the form, then, that is more absurd than the
substance. And this absurdity is heightened by a peculiar
language which Fourier concocted himself, a language picturesque
at times, more often grotesque, and which does not even possess
the advantage which big words often do, of imposing upon
the public.

But if we do not allow ourselves to be repelled by these dis-
agreeable appearances, and dive deeper into this medley, we soon
find ourselves attracted by its singular charm. This queer
customer guides^ you with so sure a hand along the corridors of
his phalanstery, he makes so many odd figures, whom he seems
to know intimately, pass in review before you, he is so sure of his
case, he makes every detail gleam with so many faces before your
eyes, that in the end he hypnotises you, as a magnétiser does
with the stopper of a carafe. I do not believe that any man of
this century has been gifted with greater imaginative power than
this commercial clerk, save, perhaps, Edgar Poe. That same
precision of detail which produces so disastrous an effect when
he rambles, throws his previsions, when they have a foundation,
into startling relief. When we read his pages, — some of which
will be found in the present work, — upon the adulteration of
merchandise, upon speculation and monopolies, the new industrial
feudalism, the increase of intermediaries in petty commerce, the
mobilisation of the soil, the necessity of international weights and
measures, and of an international commercial language (a sort of
Volapik), " the very certain and very general use of magnetism "

' This example is cited likewise by M. Renouvier, op, cit.

Introduction 17

in the coming century, the development of the taste for and the '
cultivation of flowers, the protection due to animals, the possibility
of modifying climatic conditions by appropriate vegetation, the
approaching piercing of the Isthmus of Suez and the Isthmus of
Panama " by canals through which the largest vessels will be able
to pass," the organising of immense bodies of workmen — " indus-
trial armies" — to carry out great public works in Africa and
America, — when we read all this, we cannot conceive that these
pages were written as much as three-quarters of a century ago.
We have here a veritable genius for divining, something resembling
that gift of second-sight, which, indeed, if one put any faith in
popular superstition, is the privilege of the simple-minded.

II

It is not easy to give a general view of the system of Fourier, for
it is above all noticeable for its exuberance of details and the pre-
cision with which each one is analysed. We shall, however, try
to bring out its large lines.

Fourier starts out with the à priori idea tha^/there must be a\
plan of God, that is to say, a certain social order conformable to |
God's will/ and such as may secure the perfect happiness of all .
mankind. / The whole thing is to discover this plan : iFhe entire
social problem reduces itself to a sort of divining-rod task.
Fourier feels sure that he has discovered the secret. Assuming?
as a postulate the pre-established correspondence between the)
planetary and the social world, he asserts that the mechanism /
which causes both to move must be the same, namely : attraction.]
To Newton, to whom he constantly compares himself, the glory
of having revealed this principle and expounded its laws as regards
the material world ; to him, Fourier, the honour of having revealed
it and expounded its laws as regards the moral world. ^ And how

^ The manner in which Fourier himself relates the history of his discovery
(whose date he fixes, with his habitual precision, at the year 1798), is suffi-
ciently amusing : — " Chance counts for half in the success of a man of genius.
... I myself paid tribute to it when I discovered the calculus of attraction.

B

1 8 Selections from the Works of Fourier

may the existence of attraction in human beings be recognised ?
It is revealed in the simplest manner by the existence of the
passions, that is, of those vivid and spontaneous forces which
impel man towards a desired object. Hence Fourier designates
the mainspring of action, according to him, of human society, by

^_^e term " passional attraction " (" attraction passionelle ").

; If the existing order of things, which is designated by the

I name of civilisation, is in reality so miserable and confused, it is
because legislators, imbued with the principles of a false morality,
have taxed their ingenuity to obstruct the scope of human
passions, and have thus caused them to be diverted from their
true object. /We must, on the contrary, find a combination
where the passions of man, all without exception, — even those
which we wrongly term bad, since they, like the others, have

/ been given him by God, — may act normally, and we shall then

^ see the free play of the passions producing universal harmony.

I In other words, up to the present day, the effort to change

; man so as to adapt him to his environment has been persistently
pursued : we must follow the opposite scent and change the

' environment so as to adapt it to man. In reality the environ-
ment may much more readily be modified than man, for the

j former is the work of man while the latter is the work of God.

^ This new environment is to be produced by association, not,
however, by any sort of association, but by a particular one, very

; profound and very complex, that one only, as we might imagine,

... An apple was for me, as for Newton, a guiding compass. For this
apple, which is worthy of fame, a traveUer who dined with me at Février's
restaurant in Paris paid the sum of fourteen sous. I had just come from a
district where the same kind of apples, and even superior ones, sold for a half-
liard, that is to say, more than a hundred for fourteen sous. I was so struck
by this difference of price between places having the same temperature, that I
began to suspect there must be something radically wrong in the industrial
mechanism, and hence originated the researches, which, after four years,
caused me to discover the theory of series of industrial groups, and,
consequently, the laws of universal motion missed by Newton. . . .

'* I have since then noticed that we can reckon four apples as celebrated,
two for the disasters which they caused, Adam's apple ana that of Paris, and
two for the services they rendered to science, Newton's apple and mine. Does
not this quadrille of apples deserve a page of history?" — ** Manuscrits," year
1851, p. 17.

Introduction 19

which Fourier discovered and of which he has expounded the
mechanism. It must be observed, indeed, that^Tourier nowise |
thinks that this combination is capable of being produced in \
virtue of a spontaneous and necessary evolution, but that it was j
necessary to discover and apply it *^ur author thinks, however,
that it could have been discovered very much earlier. Already
before the Christian era, in the time of the republics of Greece,
it could have been done. The time was ripe for it Mankind
has lost two thousand years, solely on account of the rhetoricians
and moralists.

Let us show by some examples how Fourier expects to go

\

about organising his industrial world solely upon the principle of ^^
attractions It does not seem that man is naturally drawn to
labour. Yet labour is absolutely indispensable to the economic life
of society. How emerge from this dilemma? /If, in civilised '
society, replies Fourier, labour is repulsive, it is because it is so
falsely organised that it does not respond to any of man's
instinctS/^^^d Fourier enumerates, with very remarkable critical
acumen by the way, all the causes which render labour repulsive
in our "civilised" society (we must lay stress on the word
civilised, because for the Indian the chase, for the nomad the
raising of cattle, does not lack attraction) ; we shall not enumerate
them here; the reader will find them in the extracts; besides,
one may foretell what they are. Labour, then, must be so
organised that it should be attractive, that is to say, that man
should take to it from inclination, from passion, and we must,
therefore, determine by analysis what are th^motor passions of \
man which must be brought into play in this instance. Fourier
finds three such passions : the papillonne^ which is the need of
change and variety ; — ^the cabaliste^ which is the love of intrigue,
and that emulation which results in rivalry ; — the composite, which
seeks satisfaction in a compound pleasure affecting at once the
mind and the body. /Let us, therefore, organise branches of labour
of a pleasant character, such as the cultivation of flowers or fruits,
which are of a nature to give rise at the same time to enjoyments,
— sensuous, esthetic, and moral, — let us organise them simultané-

20 Selections from the Works of Fourier

ously and in the same place, so that the labourers may easily
go from one to the other. — Let us group the labourers in such a
manner as to unite those having the same tastes, and let us, at
the same time, oppose these groups to each other, in order to
develop their esprit de corps and to keep them on the alert by a

1 ceaseless rivalry j/knd when all the passional springs of action
(resorts passionnels) shall thus have been brought into play by
that mechanism, of which we have given but a very imperfect idea,
but which is in reality extraordinarily complicated, we shall see
men rush to their work, just as, on a field of battle, where, like-
wise, the "passionate springs" are brought into play, we see
them rush to their death.
r Another example. Self-interest, that interest which in every
distribution impels us to claim the larger share, seems but little
compatible with the maintenance of harmony, and yet it cannot
be eliminated, since it is the mainspring of production. . ISere
again Fourier asserts that the problem may be solved by bringing
into play certain passional springs of action. He divides the
total product (following a proportion more or less arbitrary, but
which is of little moment in this explanation) between three
factors i Labour, Capital, and Talent, — and he organises things in
such a way that there is no one in the association who does not
figure in at least the first two designations, and who does not
hope to figure in the third ; hence it is not to the interest of any-
one to contest the share assigned to each of these three factors,
the general prosperity of the association being, moreover,
dependent upon satisfying each of them. /This is not all ; this
first general division having been effected, a sub-division is made
by series and groups, each series receiving a share more or less
considerable, according as the kind of work to which it devotes
itself is more or less attractive or more or less useful to society.
Here again, as each labourer figures in a great number of series, by
reason of the various occupations in which he is to engage, it will

' be to no one's interest that one series should be favoured to the
detriment of another. ^Without pursuing the exposition of this
system into its ultimate ramifications, what I have just said will

Introduction 21

suffice to give an idea of the plan of Fourier, which consists in
such an intimate blending, in the mechanism of distribution, of
personal interest and collective interest, that any conflict between
them shall become impossible.

Fourier, analysing by turns what in civilised society are called .
^^Jthe^ices/' endeavours to demonstrate how, under i)iQ régime of
association they^ would all become sources of harmony ; for example,
inconstancy in love (and upon this theme he indulges in
variations which have proved somewhat embarrassing even to his
disciples), the love of luxury, gluttony, the love of disorder and
dirt in children. As regards gluttony, for instance, he show that
under an industrial régime in which the cultivation of fruits and
vegetables of superior kinds and great variety will be the chief
branch of industry, the education and refinement of taste of the
consumers will become a necessity. He explains that if children
prefer sweetmeats to dry bread for their lunch, this proves that
Providence, in giving them that instinct, knew very well what it
was doing; it foresaw the day when agriculture would be
superseded by arboriculture, and the production of insipid grain
by that of savoury fruits, and with this in view it had instilled in
advance these natural instincts into man : it is not the fault of
Providence if we have totally failed to comprehend its intentions
or intimations . . ., and the author continues thus to an un-
conscionable length, with a mixture of extravagance and madness
which is highly diverting, and which makes us think of the
harangues that Don Quixote in the Sierra Morena delivered to the
astonished goatherds.

Since the new social order is to be based solely upon attraction,
it goes without saying that Fourier has no thought of employing
force. Never, in fact, does he appeal to legislators, to^ govern- _
ment, to an authority, to a coercive power of any sort ; Vl do not

"\

1 Impartiality compels me, to say, however, that in an inconspicuous cornfiT-,
of his works I have founc^n appeal to the intervention of the legislator. ** Isl
it indeed by freedom that the civilised man can be led to wisdom ? No : he ^
' must be forced. When the adoption of large fellies was made compulsory, all
the drivers raised a loud outcry, and two years afterwards these same men
were desirous of the change. . . . What has not been done after the same
fashion in regard to the metric system ? . . . . Such is the civilised man, a

22 Selections from the Works of Fourier

even know whether the word State which to-day serves to
characterise all more or less socialist schools, appears a single
time in his books. In this he belongs wholly to the most un-
compromising liberal school: — ^and since he does, not . - even
recognise the necessity of the police State, one might ^_5Q far
as to say that he belongs to the anarchist school, if that term did
not clash so strangely with his love of order and of symmetry.

[ It is upon free individual initiative alone that he reckons to make
a trial of his system, — an initiative which he solicits, begs for,
addressing himself to the great capitalists and to disengaged
princes with a touching pertinacity, — and it is solely upon the
contagion of example that he relies to propagate his system
throughout the world./ As regards ways and means, he gives
proof of an irreproachable orthodoxy: he has no thought of
proceeding by any way but that of social experiment.

Since the new order is based upon attraction, it also goes with-
out saying that Fourier does not think of having recourse to
revolution. He has a horror of revolutionary methods, from
which, indeed, he himself had been a personal sufferer, for he
had been imprisoned at Lyons, and had almost felt the cold
touch of the guillotine at his throat, /kot only is he not a
revolutionist, but he is not even a republican: he organises a
sort of feudal hierarchy which ascends by degrees from the
unarch or baron to the omniarch or emperor : he even holds in
reserve a number of thrones for his new régime^ some of them
elective, it is true, but others hereditary, which he offers with a

^lordly grace to all kings in exile^to all disengaged princes who
might desire them. To speak the truth, monarchy, in his system,,
reduces itself to a purely decorative form : it is there adpompam

' being without reason : it is necessary for his own good to use coercive
measures with him./I' . . Will they take offence at this avowal ? Let them
refute me by fàiîtsi by taking the initiative in real liberty, in association."
(** Unité universelle," vol. iii., p. 146, Note.) But we should be wrong in re-
garding this stray passage, embodied in a note, and which is evidently nothing
but an outburst of ill-humour, and in direct opposition to his entire scheme,
as a real expression of his thought.

This is found much more faithfully and strongly expressed in that other
phrase of his apropos of the Jesuits of Paraguay : ** All that is founded upon
force is fragile and denotes the absence of genius."

Introduction 23

ed ostentationenty as lawyers express it in Latin, — usg less, in fac t^_
since attraction j^jlLsuffiœ^ , keep the world_going. Neither
is he anti-clerical in the sense in which that word is understood
to-day. /Not only does he promise " not to worry either ministers^,
or priests," but, further, to secure them a considerable place in !
the new order. He even declares religions to be " far superior to
the uncertain sciences," because " they have had the honour of
passing true judgments upon the condition of civilised man : they
rightly consider him in a state of exile and of divine punishment."
(" Manuscrits," vol. 1853-1856, p. 293.)

It is not only in the domain of politics and religion, but also in
that of political economy that, no matter what one may think,
Fourier shows himself resolutely conservative. /He purposes to
maintain property, heredity, interest on capital, and, above all,
the inequality between the rich and the poor, which " enters into
God's plan," and which, consequently, enters also into his, and to
such a degree that he declares in advance any associative ^ experi-
ment as sterile and useless, in which people of very unequal
fortunes shall not have been brought to take part. /It is notice-
able, moreover, that Fourier nearly always addresses himself by
preference to the wealthy class rather than to what is at the
present day termed the working-class : he assures the rich that he
desires to make them still richer, and it is by the allurement of
enormous dividends,/wKich rise to eighteen or thirty-six per cent.,
— precisely as in the prospectuses of an issue of stock,-— îTTs even
by the far more extraordinary prospect of numerous bequests to
be received by them from their fellow-associates that he seeks to j
entice them. Regarded on this side, Fourier's system may be \
characterised as thoroughly " bourgeois,^* He shrugs his shoulders^
at the communistic theories of Owen/or even at the mitigated \
communism of Saint-Simon.^

^ Associ2iûvf= sociétaire. See note, p. 53. — Tr.

* ** I attended the service of the Simonians last Sunday. One cannot con-
ceive how these sacerdotal play-actors can command so large a following.
Their dogmas are not admissible ; they are monstrosities at which we must
shrug our shoulders ; to preach, in the nineteenth century, the abolition of
property and heredity ! " — Letter of the 28th of January, 1831 (quoted by
Pellarin, " Vie de Fourier").

24 Selections from the Works of Fourier

But the phalanstery, it will be asked._/ The phalanstery, the
fcharacteristics of which have been totally misconceived, in nowise
Lresembles the communistic establish menjtSj/for instance, founded
in America by the disciples of Cabet or of Mother Anne. There
is nothing either of the barracks or of the convent about it : the
« inmates do not sleep in dormitories and they do not mess
together^^/ We must picture it to ourselves like one of those great
hotels of Switzerland or of the United States, — frequently estab-
lished upon shares, — where are found combined nearly all the
comforts of life : there are common rooms for eating, conversation,
or reading, but each one may be served at a separate table or
evien in his own rooms. /\n the phalanstery also, apartments are
to be had at all prices, and tables (Thôte of three different classes,
without reckoning the children's table and that for invalids, and
service by order^/ otherwise termed à la carte^ for those who
prefer it.

^To this great hotel-pension there is attached, it is true, an agri-
cultural and in part industrial enterprise (exploitation) which is
\ likewise collective, but which is neither more nor less so than
[ undertakings founded upon shares. ' Everyone receives in shares
the exact amount of the capital he was able to put into the
association on entering it, or of the savings he has by degrees
been able to accumulate while belonging to it. Individual pro-
perty, it is true, is bound to be gradually transformed completely
into common sharehold property, — but that is an evolution quite
conformable with the views of the most orthodox political
' economy/ and which M. de Molinari, for instance, predicts for
us with no less assurance than Fourier. ^ / And Fourier hopes by
jPthis mobilisation of property to succeed in making everybody a
' co-proprietor, so that the poorest ones in Harmony might be able
to say on seeing the phalanstery : ^ My palace, my lands, my
I houses." /In the distribution of the total product of the enter-

I /

\

1 ** The innumerable multitude of enterprises, agricultural, industrial, com-
mercial, etc., will be owned by groups of shareholders and bondholders, in
whose ranks will be found associated men of all stations, of all nationalities,
of all colours." — De Molinari, ** L'évolution économique du dix-neuvième
siècle," p. 437.

Introduction 25

prise, he allots only five-twelfths to labour, four-twelfths to capital,
and three-twelfths to talent ^ : now this is a proportion in whichj
it cannot be said that labour has the lion's share/for it is quite
certain that even under the present order of things, the portion of
this factor of production amounts to not less than five-twelfths,
since, according to the calculation of the collectivists themselves,
it is slightly more. And surely capital would declare itself very
well satisfied with the portion guaranteed it by Fourier, for it is
doubtful whether it to-day carries oif more than a third of the
total production. All this, then, is of a nature to reassure the
most circumspect.

However, after having thus rehabilitated him with the econo-
mists, I should not wish to discredit him entirely with the
socialists, or make him appear too much of a mere bonhomme.
These, then, are the main points of the system in ^hich the
socialist spirit manifests itself:

1° The interest or dividend allowed the shares is not the same : ;
for them all : they are divided into three classes :' those whose /
rate of interest is enormous, something like 36 to 40 per cent. ; !
others, where it is less ; the last, finally, where it is very small, \
that is to say, about equal to our usual rate of 5 or 6 per cent, i
(which under the associative régime^ where production will be
superabundant, will be considered very low). Now the shares in
the first category (actions ouvrières) will not be assigned except to
those who have a very small number of them, one or at most two ;
having received this allotment, they will not be able to own any
shares but those in the second category (actions foncilres\ and
even these in rather limited quantity : if they should wish to go
beyond this limit they will only have a right to the third category
(actions banquilres). The object of this mechanism, which is
childish enough, is that,,^ntrary to the present order of things, j
small amounts of capital shall bring in much better returns than!
large ones, and that it shall be much easier for the poor to start a \^
fortune than for the rich to augment theirs. — '

^ Or again : six-twelfths to labour, four-twelfths to capital, and two-twelfths
to talent, a proportion which also would quite well suit Fourier, for, says he,
" the sum of the two extremes would equal double the mean, 2-1-6=2x4"!

26 Selections from the Works of Fourier

\ 2° A minimum as regards food, lodging, clothing, and even
,' amusements, — a minimum, modest but "very decent," — will be
1;^ guaranteed to all the members of the associatioryihat is to say, —
supposing Fourier's system to be made universal, as it is meant to
be, — to all men; This is one of the most important features of
Fourier's programme. It does not at first sight seem that there
is anything more in it than a system of compulsory legal assist-
ance on a great scale. But what is weighty about it is that
Fourier allows this minimum without conditions y that is to say,
/without demanding that he who profits by it shall furnish a
-pertain amount of work or give proof of his inability to work.^
The objÊCtipn which strikes one at first blush, namely, that under
these conditions nobody would take the trouble to work, does-not
concern Foujier. - He recognises that in the state of civilisation
the objection is an insurmountable one, because there man works
only to gain his bread, — but under the associative régime^ in
/ which man works for pleasure and from "passion," the know-
! ledge that his place at the dinner-table is assured will not stop
him/quite the contrary. And Fourier adds, and his remark is a
very just one, that the guarantee of this minimum is the con-
dition sine qua non of the existence of his phalanstery, that is to
r say, of the life in common between persons belonging to all
classes of society : it alone can allow the poor to live in harmony
. with the rich, and without envy; — it alone, too, can allow the
\, rich to find pleasure in the society of the poor, by rendering them
men " of good company," and maintaining them at a certain
. moral and intellectual level.

3° The wage system will be abolished, labour being thenceforth
renumerated solely by a share in the profits (the five-twelfths).^
The wage system is, in fact, incompatible with the dominant idea
of Fourier's system, that of attractive labour ; mercenary labour
cannot be attractive any more than forced labour, and precisely
because it is in part forced. It is especially the wage system as
applied to domestic «service that is repellent to Fourier, and the
way in which he proposes to abolish it is one of the most original
and most touching parts of his books. As for the wages of

Introduction 27

mdustrial labour, the solution indicated by Fourier as early as the
beginning of this century is no other than that which has been
applied with so much success in the Swiss Familistère^ the Leclaire
establishment, the Bon MarcM; that is to say, profit-sharing,
carrying the workmen, little by little, to a co-proprietorship in the !
business. We see, then, that in this solution there is nothing
revolutionary.

If we pass now to what I shall term his economic programme,
I shall sum it up under the following eight heads :

\^ To aim at reform in the method of production rather than the \
method of distribution, — The social question, for him, does not lie /
in the inequality of wealth but in its insufficiency. /For him, the
existing organisation involves a frightful waste of the productive \
forces, which is the cause of there not being sufficient wealth for
the poor nor even for the rich who falsely fancy themselves rich, ;
while they are merely a little less miserable than the poor. /TT is
in the organism of production, then, that lies the evil which we
must cure.

2° To lay stress upon agricultural production rather than upon \
industrial production, — Industrial production does not enter into
God's plans ; or, if one prefers, man is not naturally attracted to
industrial labour, save to some certain kinds on a small scale. But (
the work done in factories, the labour of extractingjthe products of
mines, which is necessarily allied with that work, are employments
repellent to man, and are, besides, in great part needless. In
reality, good quality, which ensures the durability of products, the
economy resulting from a life in common, the simplicity of
manners which will do away with fashion and its ruinous caprices,
will allow the consumption of industrial products to be reduced to
a minimum. It is the consumption of alimentary products which
cannot be reduced, but should, on the contrary, be enormously ,
increased. Agricultural production must, therefore, be the pivot .
of all production, as it is also the natural vocation of man. ' It is
that, too, which in the world of Harmony is destined to fill the
whole scene. Fourier reserves for industrial work only a quarter
of the time at disposal, and that only for such workas may be

1

28 Selections front the Works of Fourier

considered the accessory of agricultural labour, — weaving,
spinning, and the arts of the carpenter, locksmith, basket-maker,
etc.

3° To transform agricultural industry by devoting it exclusively
to horticulture and arboriculture, — Agricultural labour, it may be
objected to Fourier, is not necessarily more attractive than
industrial labour ; to till the earth has always been regarded, on
the contrary, as the type of painful toil, of toil which is done
"with the sweat of one's brow." Assuredly, replies Fourier. And
by agricultural production we do not mean what has been almost
exclusively designated by that name since Triptolemus, that is to
say, the cultivation of wheat. This voracious grain requires for
its cultivation relatively enormous areas; it hardly produces
enough, upon a given area, to nourish a small number of people ;
It imposes, for its cultivation, as well as for its transformation into
bread, the severest labour under which mankind has ever been
made to groan, — that of the plough, the millstone, the kneading-
trough ; and, finally, it furnisher but an insipid aliment, good at
most only " for the civilised," It is from the cultivation of fruits

: and vegetables, the raising of fowls and bees, from fish-culture,
that we must henceforth demand the nourishment of mankind.

( It is these products alone that will permit us to obtain from a

! relatively small area a food supply at once abundant, varied,
savouryyand constantly renewed ; they alone brighten the earth
hy making its surface a garden, the garden of Eden ; they alone,
above all, answer the natural tastes of man and turn labour into^
pleasure. As one of his disciples says, " The young wife waters
her flowers, the old soldier lays out the borders of his little
garden, and the student grafts his trees ; the banker designs
tortuous paths in his English garden ; the simple citizen tries to

' lose himself among the windings of his microscopic parterre;
the grisette decorates her window with a curtain of climbing-
plants." ^

4° Not to employ any other method of production than production
on a great scale. — Upon this point, Fourier being in accord with

1 Renaud, **De la Solitarité," p. 67.

Introduction 29

all economists and even all socialists, it is useless to insist, unless
to call attention to the fact that production on a great scale, now
become so common, was not so much so at the time when
Fourier proclaimed it. — It is for the purpose of carrying on
production on a great scale that he had conceived the Phalanx,
an association, of about 1800 persons working a piece of land a
square league in extent, say about 5000 acres ; that is an area
which will appear considerable if we reflect that in Fourier's
system the work is to consist chiefly of market-gardening. — It is
for great undertakings which would require the activity of larger
masses, that he proposes to have recourse to the industrial
armies.

5° To carry the division of labour to its ultimate limits, — It isj
a trite maxim of political economy since Adam Smith that
agricultural production does not lend itself to division of labour,
and this proposition seems to have a basis so far as regards the
raising of annuals, such as we cultivate, but it ceases to be true
for the growing of market-garden and horticultural products.
Here, on the contrary, it is readily understood that each producer
should make a speciality of a certain variety of flowers, or fruits, or
vegetables. Fourier, therefore, proposes to divide his phalanx into
135 series, — growers of cabbage, radishes, cherries, etc., and
to subdivide these themselves into as many groups and sub-groups
as there are varieties in each species. . __^

6° In order to correct the monotony of specialisation carried to an
extreme^ to have recourse to variety and the alternation of labour, — -_
This is, of his entire scheme, the point to which he attaches the
most importance. He points out, surely not without reason, that,
in order that specialisation should produce all the good results which
may be expected from it, it is by no means indispensable that this
specialisation should be limited to a single object. A man may
very well be trained as a specialist in several different branches,
and nevertheless bring to bear upon each the maximum ability
and dexterity of which he is capable. And in going by turn from
one task to another he will have the advantage of escaping the
stupefying effect of monotony, and of satisfying that need of

30 Selections from the Works of Fourier

change, that ^^ papillone^^ which according to Fourier, as we
know, constitutes one of the fundamental passions of man.
' 7° To employ in consumption the system of association on a great
scalcy in order to avoid the waste inherent in housekeeping. —
Consumption on a great scale (" la grande consommation ") appears
j to Fourier an indispensable corollary to production on a great
! scale (" la grande production ") and for the same economic reasons/
The calculation of the enormous saving which must result from
this consumption in common, is one of the favourite themes of
Fourier. His methodical cast of mind delights in these
household accounts.

8° To accomplish the suppression of all intermediaries by con-
stituting great autonomous associations which shall be self-sufficient
' or shall procure by direct exchange with similar associations the
\ products they need,/-These autonomous associations are, naturally,
the phalansteries: however, as a preparatory measure, Fourier
recommended the institution of communal warehouses designed
to receive in storage and to sell directly to the consumers
agricultural products, and to buy directly from the producers raw
materials, implements, and all the articles of consumption needed
by their members.

Ill

Such, in its large outlines, is the system of Fourier. Contrary to
general belief, its character is not essentially socialistic, but if we
compare it with those of the great economic schools, we find that
it presents notable points of contact with each of them, as well as
essential differences.

With the liberal school it has in common its absolute confi-
dence in the liberty of the individual and its antipathy to all
coercive intervention : — but it difiers from it in that it declares
that before inaugurating the rule of laisser faire and laisser passer
we must first place man in an environment prepared cui hoc^
civilised environment rendering the normal development of
mankind an absolute impossibDity.

Introduction 3^

With the optimist school of Bastiat, which, in this point, it
anticipated by thirty years, it has in common its firm assurance
thayuniversal harmony must be the spontaneous outcome of tEié ]
free play of individual interests, and that the social order ought .
not to be less perfect than the order which reigns in the planetary /
system : — but it differs from it in that, instead of believing this .
harmony already realised in the existing order of things, he con- .
siders, on the contrary, this order of things anarchical andj
barbarouyand looks forward to a new heaven and a new earth.

With the Christian school it has in common its faith in the i
existence of a foreordained providential plan from which man '.
wandered and which it is now our concern to recover, if we
desire the reign of peace : but it differs from it radically by its
belief in the innate goodness of man, by its theory that all the
passions of man lead him naturally towards good and that he
could not do better than to yield to them, finally by its negation ;
of moral law, of duty, of sin. I

With the socialist school, in conclusion, it has in common the i
vehemence of its attacks upon competition, commerce, domestic •
life, upon civilisation in general, as well as its tendency to see
everything painted in bright colours in the society of the future \
it has in common also the guarantee of a minimum and the
abolition of the wage system ; but it differs from it radically by
its respect for the wealthy classes, for property, inheritance,
capital, and all that is commonly spoken of as constituting the
foundations of social order. i

One cannot, then, deny to the system of Fourier the merit of
originality. As to its shortcomings and its errors, they are no
less evident.

His method is, to begin with, à priori to a degree that passes
airbounds. I know very well that Fourier denies it, and declares
that wer must "observe the things we wish to know and not
imagine them " ^ ; but when he proceeds to explain in minute

1 Here, by way of a curiosity, are the rules of method laid down by Fourier :

To trace ideas to their origin.

Not to believe Nature limited to known methods.

32 Selections from the Works of Fourier

detail what Cod's plan was in regard to u§, and not only in
regard to our poor little earth, but all the other planets, just as if
he had been present and taken part in the celestial councils — ^it
is hard to think that he has remained faithful to his maxim. By
this we do not mean that correct, even penetrating observations
are lacking in the works of Fourier — they contain gems of that
kind, — but for this strange observer the facts observed, instead of
being the rock upon which to build his system, serve but as a
springing-board on which, every time, he gets a new start to

^rebound to the very stars !

^ To take as a starting-point that God " who is a skilful mechani-
cian '* must have employed the same force in the material as in

Llhe moral world^-^hat is, attraction, — to infer, like Pythagoras or
like Bastiat, from the harmony which reigns in the movements of
the planets a like harmony in the relation of human beings, — all
this is philosophy of a childish enough sort. We do not at all
know whether the sidereal world is perfect, or even whether there
is a single planet besides our own where life may find the con-
ditions necessary for its development, and even admitting that it
did, that would offer but small ground upon which to base
conclusions regarding social relations.

I To reckon in man twelve fundamental passions belongs to an
evidently fantastic or rather mystic psychology,— the number 12
having been evidently chosen only because it made a better
working number than 11 or 13. Doubtless in certain respects

! this analysis may be considered superior to that of the classical

,' school which recognises only a single motive in man, that of
self-interest, and regards all the other sentiments as simply dis-
turbing elements, or negligible quantities which ought to be left
out of account. The passional system of Fourier offers a richer

To explore in its entirety the domain of Nature.
To simplify the motive power in every mechanism.
To observe the things we wish to know and not imagine them.
To doubt and consult experience.
To go from the known to the unknown by analogy.
To proceed by analysis and synthesis.

To believe that everything is connected, unitary, in the system of the
universe. — (U. U., i., 197*)

Introduction 33

key-board and one probably in closer conformity with reality than |
the hedonistic principle/€\hich serves as a basis for all the deduc-
tions of pure political economy^ out hé~ takes great care to j
suppress in this key-board all the keys which might disturb the i
final harmony. /For instance, among the passions of man,
Fourier completely ignores the existence of indolence, envy, and
jealousy, — to mention only these. Now even admitting that the
first two might be considered as springing simply from our state
of civilisation, and, consequently, susceptible of disappearing with
it, — one cannot, at all events, say as much of jealousy, which
certainly is as natural as the instinct of reproduction itself, with
which, for the rest, it seems allied among brutes as well as in
man.

Attractive labour is itself a purely à priori conception. It is with
reason that Fourier regarded this as the pivot of his system, — for
it is quite certain that if labour were a pleasure instead of a pain,
all economic phenomena without exception would be different
from what they are,-^but observation does not offer to our view
attractive labour anywhere. It is true that Montesquieu found it
possible to say : " There is no climate on earth where free men
could not be induced to work. Because the laws were bad,
people were found to be lazy ; because they were lazy, they were
put in slavery," ^ but he meant to say by that not that labour was
not a pain, but that it was a pain which man accepted courageously
if it had as correctives liberty and property. Doubtless, also, it is
true that man finds delight and his true destiny in the exercise of
a certain physical and intellectual activity, — that absolute inaction,
for instance that of a prisoner under a rule of complete isolation
in a cell, is a torment more cruel than the eternal task of Sisyphus
in the infernal regions — but this activity is enjoyable, properly
speakiàg, only when it finds its satisfaction, its proper end, in
itself; as soon as it is only a means to gain an end determined in
advance, only a condition to an ulterior enjoyment, then it requires
painful effort, and can cause only such pleasure as arises from the
satisfaction of duty accomplished; — and that is exactly why

^ " Esprit des Lois," book xv., chap. viii.

^

34 Selections from the Works of Fourier

certain exercises (such as walking, rowing, dancing) may be, just
according to the end in view, but without changing their nature,
either painful labour or amusing sport. It is not difficult to turn
any labour into play, but at the same time it becomes sterile. I
have no doubt that the labours of which Fourier makes us spectators
in his phalanstery, such as cultivating roses or gathering cherries
in joyous company, may indeed be very attractive, and we should^
doubtless, take extreme pleasure in them, but I doubt greatly that
labour conducted in such a manner would prove productive. The
noblest employments, the most attractive it would seem, that of
the artist and the poet, even they, in order to become productive,
impose the strain and anguish of travail. Manual labour forms no
exception. Take even the kind of labour to which Fourier was so
partial, and to which he hopes to bring back by degrees all human
industry — gardening ; it may, no doubt, be charming for one who
demands nothing but the pleasure itself of gardening, but if she
has to supply the markets with provisions for a great city, it
becomes more arduous perhaps than any other. A monograph on
the market gardeners of the outskirts of Paris ^ depicts them to us ;
" beginning their work before dawn, spending the day gathering
vegetables, cleaning them, arranging them in baskets, loading the
waggons, no matter what the weather; and on days preceding
market-day, prolonging their labour to ten o'clock at night, then
throwing themselves upon their beds, and after a few hours' repose,
rising, mounting the waggon, and starting in rain or frost so as to
reach the market-place about four o'clock in the morning." The
Chinese, too, have transformed agriculture into a sort of market-
garden culture which is wonderfully productive, but at what cost ?
by transporting upon their shoulders in order to scatter over the
soil " human manure " . . ., might this perchance be one of the
forms of attractive labour ?

Neither does his organisation of property appear to be based
upon a just analysis of the desires and the needs of human nature.
We must observe that, — contrary to the collectivists, who abolish
individual property in the instruments of production (land and
' ** Maraîchers de Deuil," par Urbain Guérin, " Ouvriers des deux mondes."

Introduction 35

capital), and retain it as to articles of consumption, — Fourier
retains property (mobilised, it is true, under the form of shares)
in land and capital, but desires, it seems, to abolish it as to
articles of consumption by his system of hotel life.^^Now, if it
were necessary to choose between these two forms of maiming
the right of property, I should prefer that of the collectivists :
this would not touch, like that of Fourier, the most intimate and
most sensitive fibres of our being. For, if it is desirable, from
the point of view of individual development, that everyone shall
have the possibility of being an owner of lands or houses, of
registered bonds, or bonds payable to bearer, at least it cannot be
said that this is indispensable to happiness, — there are plenty of
people who do not enjoy that satisfaction, and who regard them-
selves as happy in spite of it ; — but it may on the other hand be
maintained that what is indispensable to the happiness of private
life is the ability to own the things which surround us, which we
touch, and into which we put our memories and a part of
ourselves.

Finally, without pursuing these criticisms further, we may
indulge in the regret that Fourier, in the perspectives which he
unrolls before our eyes, believed it necessary to tempt men by
allurements relatively gross. Those dividends of thirty and
thirty-six per cent., that quadruple and sextuple product, that
land yielding henceforth two harvests a year, all this resembles a
little too closely the prospectuses of those suspicious companies
which we see spring up on the eve of financial crashes. That
country in which people will partake of five meals a day, and
where they will eat sweetmeats instead of bread, is simply the
land of the foolish tales we listened to in our childhood : it was
called the country where things could be had for the asking.
The new world that Fourier pictures to his disciples resembles
a little too closely the paradise which Mahomet promised his
followers, — even the houris are not wanting 1 All this is a low
enough moral conception. We do not know what the society of
the future will be, but what we do know is that that society, what-
ever it may be, will be superior to our own only in so far as it

36 Selections from the Works of Fourier

shall have succeeded in elevating the thoughts and desires of
man, and that this will not be attained by treading a path of
roses. That continual effort of man to reach a goal which he
will never attain, that struggle against himself which constitutes
his wretchedness and his dignity — of all this tragic side of human
destiny Fourier had not even a suspicion,^ and he does not,
therefore, deserve to take rank among the great reformers.

But thus much granted to criticism, there is still much to be
gleaned from the work of Fourier : it abounds in suggestive views,
and here and there, through the clouds, in luminous and astonish-
ingly profound vistas of the future. No book — since that of the
Sibyls — has contained more oracles, and if among the number
there are some that are of but little more value than those of
Delphi, there are others which will very probably be realised,
which are already on the road to realisation, and thereby justify
what we have called the divining genius of Fourier.

Is not, for instance, the preponderance of industrial over agri-
cultural production a deplorable side of our economic organisation,
and have we not here a displacement of equilibrium contrary to
the nature of things, and growing more and more menacing?
That evil which tends to become" chronic, and which we
designate by the term industrial crises, is it aught else at bottom
but a disproportion more and more marked between the produc-
tion of necessary wealth, that is, alimentary commodities, and
that of relatively superfluous wealth, that is, industrial products, —
a disproportion which is evidenced by a disastrous rise in the
price of the first, and a fall, unavailing enough, in the price of the
second ? Is it not a pity to see our time reserve all its inventions,
its most powerful machines, the resources of steam and electricity,
for the production of pins and envelopes, when the production of

1 The man who was considered the most eminent disciple of Fourier, and
the only one who has realised a part of his scheme, expressed himself thus
regarding his master: ** The doctrine wherein he maintains that every man,
whatever his character, is a harmonious being, appears to me a preconceived
idea. This fundamental error is based upon the idea that man is such as God
has made him, instead of a progressive being whose duty it is to labour for his
own perfection, and who is what he makes himself." — Letter of the i8th of
April, reproduced in the '* Bulletin du Mouvement social," 1884.

Introduction 37

grain and meat is, according to the avowal of all agriculturists, so
deplorably behindhand ? Is this, then, the future reserved to our
race, to crowd more and more into cities black with smoke and
tainted with wretchedness, and do not several of the great
economic schools to-day take as their watchword the same great
cry which urged Fourier on at the beginning of this century :
Return to the soil !

The transformation of agriculture into horticulture, again, is
that indeed such a puerile conception? Does not agricultural
evolution tend, in fact, under the pressure of a constantly growing
population, to become more and more intensive, and is not
market-gardening the last step in intensive cultivation ? Are not
already the suburbs of the great centres of population devoted
entirely to market-gardening? And what will the whole of
Europe be some years hence if not one gigantic suburb stretching
without a break from one capital to another ? Europe will then
abandon the cultivation of cereals and the raising of cattle with-
out regret, first, because it will no longer have large enough tracts
of land at its disposal for these purposes, and further, because
America, Africa, and Asia will engage in them in its stead, and at
a less cost ; and it will no longer persist in a defensive war of
tariffs, as futile as it is onerous. It is related of Mr. Gladstone
that, some English proprietors having come to him to complain
of the competition of American wheat, he replied to them :
" Cultivate roses ! The Americans will not send you roses."
Charming and profound remark ! which is, however, only a
picturesque expression of the system of Fourier. Yes, our grand-
sons will cultivate roses, — why not ? if we may trust Candide, the
last word of philosophy is to cultivate one's garden ; why should
it not also be the last word of political economy ?

Upon the advantages of production on a great scale, of the
division of labour, upon the abuses of the multiplicity of inter-
mediaries, and the adulteration of commodities, there is no need
of justifying Fourier : his case is won in advance. We may,
however, on this last point, permit ourselves to call attention to
the fact that not only did Fourier denounce the evil with a caustic

38 Selections from the Works of Fourier

energy and a precision which have left but little to be said after
him, but that, furthermore, he pointed out exactly the true
remedy \ one which is only to-day beginning to be applied on a
great scale, — I refer to the agricultural syndicates and the
co-operative associations of consumers. As will be seen in the
ensuing extracts, he described most accurately the characteristics
of these associations and delineated their rule and functions with
the greatest exactitude half a century in advance, by exhibiting
the mechanism of his ^^ comptoirs communaux "y and the influence
exercised by Fourier upon the development of co-operation,
particularly in America, is certainly not less than that attributed
to Owen.

As regards what is usually spoken of as the social question, or
the wages-problem, has anyone up to the present day shown us a
more practical solution, — I mean by that one that has stood the
test of experiment, — than that which Fourier extolled ? the parti-
cipation of the labourers in the profits, this leading them to become
eventually co-proprietors in enterprises and transforming them
from wage-earners into partners ?

Perhaps we shall have the surprise of seeing realised, at least
in part, and before long, that one of all the ideas of Fourier
which seemed the most extravagant — namely, consumption in
common. We see it dawning, this new communism, at the two
extremities of the social ladder, at the top and at the bottom : —
for the wealthy classes it is the life of hotels, boarding-houses,
clubs, which tends to become more general in consequence of
various causes ; it may be, as in the United States, because of the
almost utter impossibility of obtaining domestics, it may be
because of bachelor habits and the progressive dissolution of
family ties : — for the poor classes it is the economic kitchens
which constitute one of the forms of consumption in common ;
they do not necessarily sit at the same table, but they get their food
out of the same pot. There are, too, employees' associations,
which are now being organised, frequently under the patronage
of the administration, in the great postal and telegraph depart-
ments for example, and whose object it is to enable the employees

Introduction 39

to live at a much smaller cost by being supplied from one common
kitchen. I will not say that this aspect of the future is a very
joyous one. An odious perspective, on the contrary ! the life of
the hotel and the table (Tkôte^ if they are to become the general
and inevitable rule, will render existence intolerable. The family
hearth has, indisputably, already paled ; it no longer blazes as it
did in the societies of old where pious hands fed its flame with oil
and incense ; but it still diffuses a little light and heat, and it
would not be without a great loss to humanity that we should see
it totally extinguished. But whether this evolution tempt or
repel us, it is none the less on its way, and though we may cherish
some ill-will towards Fourier for having praised it too highly, old
bachelor as he was, we must admire the clear-sightedness with
which he predicted it so far in advance.

Finally, if we reduce the system of Fourier to its most general
conception; that is to say, if we figure the world to ourselves
covered by a net-work of autonomous associations engaged in
production for their own use, and exchanging directly with each
other the products of their labour, — it cannot be well said that a
formula could be found which would better define the social
order of the future. Bold indeed would he be who should
pretend to determine what the real future will be, but there is
ground for the belief that it will present at least certain features of
this picture. A considerable number of economists, or moderate
socialists, or even philosophers, believe that " free co-operative
association is the future.*' ^ And in fact we already see, in
England on a great scale, in other countries in smaller proportions,
great co-operative societies being organised, forming a federation
with each other and producing for their own use a part at least of
the enormous quantity of products which they consume ; they are
even beginning to invest the surplus of their capital in agricultural
enterprises intended to supply them with the alimentary
commodities of which they stand in need. Up to the present, the
development of these associations has suffered no break, and if

' Secrétan, ** Etudes sociales," p. 176. — Hertzka, ** Die Gesetze der socialen
Entwickelung." — See also our article, "L'avenir de la Co-operation."
{J^ezme Sodaliste, June, 1888.)

40 Selections from the Works of Fourier

this progression continues, we may look forward to the day when
these associations will be the law in the market, and will constitute
the new type of economic organisation.

IV

The school of Fourier has never had the éclat of that of Saint-
Simon ; but it has perhaps left a more profound trace. It has
counted fewer disciples, but they have remained more faithful.

It was shortly after the publication of the great "Traité de
r Association domestique agricole," about 1825, that the first
nucleus of the associative school was formed by Just Muiron,
Victor Considérant, Godin, Mme. Clarisse Vigoureux, and some
others. About 1832, this Httle group was increased by the addition
of some deserters from the school of Saint-Simon, the most
important being Lechevalier and Abel Transon. It is at this
period that the school began the publication of a weekly paper,
Le PhalansÛre: later on they even organised courses in which
lectures were given by MM. Adrien Berbrugger, Considérant,
Transon, Philippe Hauger, and sometimes by the master himself.

The death of Fourier, which took place in 1837, gave a new
impetus to his doctrines, — a thing of not infrequent occurrence.
The school continued to grow in importance up to 1848, at which
od it reckoned, it is said, as many as 3700 members, among
them the future emperor. Prince Louis Napoleon. After the
revolution of 1848, it was submerged by the great anti-socialist
reactionary movement which characterised the second empire.
The journal Le Phalanstlre^ which since 1834 had borne the
name of La Phalange^ ceased to appear in 1850. And it might
have been thought that the school would gradually disappear
along with the few men who still represented it. But, by a turn
of events quite unexpected, it seems that in these last years the
associative school shows a tendency to be restored to a new life.
And what is remarkable is that this movement is not due to the
initiative of any of the old disciples of Fourier who still survive.
The three most noted, Victor Considérant, Brisbane, and De

Introduction 41

Pompery no longer carry on a propaganda. It is new men who
have raised the flag of the phalanstery. The Revue du Mouvement
social^ edited by M. Limousin, but which is no longer published,
the Devoir, the organ of the Familistlre of Guise, these already
had kept up the associative tradition. M. Hippolyte Destrem has
lately (in t888) founded a monthly journal entitled La Renovation,
an organ of the associative school, and he proposes to inaugurate
not exactly the system of harmony, but at least the social order of
guaranteeism^ which, according to Fourier's theory, ought to serve
as a transition. This new school, too, has organised courses, and
its members meet at monthly banquets. From time to time, also,
newspaper articles appear which bear the visible marks of the
Fourierist spirit. This tendency of mind is assuredly due to the
remarkable confirmation which certain predictions of Fourier have
received from the economic evolution of our time, notably that
concerning the multiplication of intermediaries on one hand, and
the creation of agricultural syndicates and co-operative associations
of consumers on the other.

Fourier's system has been the object of quite a number of
experiments in different countries. The first attempt was made
while the author was still living, in 1832. One of his disciples, M.
Baudet Dulaury, founded a society on shares, and bought about
1200 acres of land near Rambouillet, in Condé-sur-Vesgres, in
order to establish a phalanstery, but they did not succeed in
raising the necessary capital, and the enterprise was abandoned
before they had been able even to begin operations. — For the rest,
Fourier repeatedly expressly disowned this attempt, as not
fulfilling the conditions circumstantially laid down by him. It is
probable that he would likewise have disclaimed all responsibility
for the failures which have followed, and it must be admitted that
he would in some measure have a right to do so, his system being
composed of a series of extremely complicated gearings (he was
fond of using this very term), so that if a single wheel is suppressed
the entire mechanism is brought to a stand-still.

Some attempts were made in Algeria, but above all in the
United States. There, in 1852, thanks to the propaganda of

42 Sekctîons from the Works of Fourier

Albert Brisbane, of Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune^ of
Charles A. Dana, George Ripley and some others, Fourierist ideas
had a rapid spread. Three large associations, applying to a
greater or lesser extent the principles of Fourierism, sprang into
existence almost simultaneously : The North American Phalanx^
founded by Brisbane in the state of New Jersey, The Wisconsin
Phalanx^ in the state of the same name, and the most famous of
all. Brook Farm near Boston, which counted very distinguished
men among its members, some of whom later took a leading part
in the organisation which called itself " Sovereigns of Industry,"
in the " Knights of Labour," and in the co-operative movement.
Even Channing and Hawthorne spent some time there. Thirty
of these communities were reckoned in all ; but none of them
lasted more than five or six years. ^

Only a few months ago there was formed, in France, a " League
for Social Progress " {Ligue du progrh social)^ born of the same
impulse for a Fourierist revival of which I have just spoken, its
object being to establish an associative colony. We have not
heard that it has as yet reached the stage of active operation.

I shall perhaps be reproached with having thus far said nothing
of the only experiment which has reflected credit upon the school
of Fourier, — the famous familistère of Guise, founded by M.
Godin, and which, contrary to • pessimist predictions, seems
destined to survive its founder. But we have already seen that
M. Godin — while applying the system of Fourier in certain
details, such as the congregation of the workmen in one " palace,"
the institution of the nursery i^^ poupannat^\ the participation of
labour in the profits and by degrees in the ownership itself of the
enterprise — has nevertheless diverged from the master upon the
essential points. The influence of the doctrines of Fourier upon
the establishment at Guise is, however, incontestable, but it is
not more direct than that which they have exercised over a great
many other co-operative institutions.

It was impossible in the publication of the works of Fourier to

1 See for most of these details the work of Mr. Richard T. Ely, " The
Labour Movement in America."

Introduction 43

employ the same method that has been followed for the most part
in the volumes already published in this collection, that is, to
give his chief work in its entirety, or at least its most important
chapters. Fourier's ideas are found thrown pell-mell and without
order in all his books. We have therefore found it necessary to
ransack the seven or eight voluminous works of his which have
been published, to cut out all the passages which have seemed to
us to detach themselves from the surrounding mass, either by
their superior interest or by giving the most exact expression of
the author's idea, and to arrange all these fragments, one after
another, classifying them by chapters and by the nature of the
subject-matter, so as to give, as far as possible, the impression of
a continuous whole. Nevertheless, since we have not permitted
ourselves to add connecting remarks, this little book will neces-
sarily have a certain air of disjointedness, — and we could not, for
the rest, have deprived it of this character without entirely dis-
torting the work of Fourier, which is distinguished, as we know,
by the use of ^^ Tordre dispersé,^^ — In making a selection of these
extracts one might easily have given a caricature of Fourier by
reproducing, by preference, as has been done by Louis Reybaud,
the most extravagant passages : it would, on the other hand,
have been easy to present a highly flattered Fourier by systemati-
cally excluding everything of an eccentric character : we have
endeavoured to keep equally distant from both of these pre-
conceptions by presenting a realistic Fourier, that is to say, a
Fourier fantastic but practical.

We have distributed our chapters, which, we repeat, are
composed of bits and fragments, and whose titles are not taken
from Fourier, in the following manner :

The first five (Theodicy, Evolution, Rôle of the Passions,
Relation of the Sexes, Education) represent what may be termed
the philosophical part of Fourier's work.

The four following (Vices of Civilisation, Commerce, Agri-
culture, Manufactures) represent the critical part: the most
interesting for us, because it is that which most closely touches
political economy.

44 Selections from the Works of Fourier

The last chapters contain a systematic and practical exposition
of the work of Fourier.

At the end of each of these extracts a reference will be found
to the work, volume, and page from which it was taken. For
these references we have thought it best to direct the reader not
to the original editions, bearing the autograph signature of Fourier,
and which have now become very rare, but to the later editions
which have been published by the school and may be readily
obtained in the market. The following is a list of these works.

"Théorie des Quatre Mouvements.'' — i vol., 2nd edition, 1841.
Librairie sociétaire. — (The original edition appeared in 1808 in
Lyons, under the false name of Leipsic.) — We refer to it by the
abbreviation Q. M.

"Théorie de TUnité Universelle." — 4 vol., 2nd edition. Lib-
rairie sociétaire^ 1838. — (The original edition was published m
1822 in Paris by Bassange, under the title of "L'Association
domestique agricole" ^.) — Abbreviation U. U.

"Le Nouveau Monde industriel et Sociétaire." — i vol., 3rd
edition. — Librairie sociétaire^ 1848. — (The first edition appeared
in 1829.) — ^Abbreviation N. M.

"La Fausse Industrie." 2 vol. — 1835-1836. — In the case of
this book, from which we have however abstracted but little, we
refer, by way of exception, to the original edition. — Abbreviation
F. L

" Manuscrits de Fourier." — Librairie Phaîanstérienne^ 185 1. —
Abbreviation Man.

There have also appeared in the journal La Phalange^ from
1845 to 1850, a considerable number of unpublished fragments
of Fourier, of which some were off-printed, and a certain number
have been collected into a quarto volume, published in 1850,
under the title of ^^ Phalange^ — But we have made no extracts

^ The school did wrong to change this title which was very happily chosen,
while the second is purely oratorical. It may, it is true, justify itself by the
authority of Fourier himself, who, in the preface to his book (U, U., i., 4),
says : ** I have selected the most modest title, but, according to proper pro-
cedure, this book should have been entitled * Théorie de l'unité universelle,*
a science touched upon by Newton, who explained one branch of it. ..."

Introduction 45

from these last publications, which are little more than rough
drafts which the author used in composing the above-mentioned
works.

It goes without saying that, aside from unavoidable sup-
pressions, we have scrupulously reproduced the text, even leaving
some errors in orthography, and that the passages in italics, in
particular, are so in the original.

Selections from the Works of Fourier

^^

PART FIRST

CHAPTER I

THEODICY

We shall inevitably be led astray unless we adopt as a guide in
our researches the five primordial properties of God :

Integral direction of movement.

Economy of means.

Distributive justice.

Universality of providence.

Unity of action.

According to the first, Integral direction of movement^ the har-
monic Groups and Series must draw by attraction the entire body
of men to productive labour.

According to the second, Economy of means ^ the Groups must
establish in industry and intercourse the greatest combination
possible, in opposition to the civilized system which is based
upon the smallest possible, the married couple.

According to the third, Distributive justice^ the régime of the

48 Selections from the Works of Fourier

c

free and harmonic Groups must guarantee a proportional distri-
bution, a graduated minimum, and agreement in distribution.

According to the fourth, Universality of providence^ this order,
of things must extend and be applicable to all nations, for the
providence of God would be imperfect if he had devised a social
system which should not satisfy the needs and secure the
happiness of every people, age, and sex.

According to the fifth. Unity of action^ collective and individual
interest must harmonise, so that the individual will be following
the right path in yielding blindly to his passions ; otherwise he
will be at strife with himself, in accordance with civilised morals.
— (Man., 129.)

On beholding this mechanism, or even in making an estimate
of its properties, it will be comprehended that God has done well
all that he has done, and that instead of madly losing thirty
centuries in insulting attraction, which is the work of God, the
world should have devoted, as I have done, thirty years to its study.
—(N. M., 26.)

What could have been God's motives in foregoing to give us a
code supported by attraction ? What motive could he have had in
denying it to us ? Concerning this hiatus there are six possible
opinions.

1° Either he was unable to give us à social code of attraction,
justice, truth, and unity ; in that case he is unjust in creating this
need within us without possessing the means to satisfy us, as he
does the animals for whom he institutes social codes which are
attractive and regulate the industrial system.

2° Or he did not wish to give us this code ; in that case he is
premeditatedly a persecutor, creating in us wantonly needs which
it is impossible for us to gratify, since none of our codes can
extirpate the seven lympic scourges.

3° Or he was able and did not wish : in that case he is an
emulator of the devil, able to do right and preferring the reign of
evil.

4® Or he did wish and was unable : in that case he is incapable

Theodicy 49

of governing us, knowing and wishing the right which he is unable
to do, and which we are still less able to perform.

5® Or he neither wished nor was able : in that case he is inferior
to the Devil, who is a scoundrel, but is not stupid.

6® Or he was able and did wish : in that case the code exists
and he must have revealed it to us ; for of what use would this
code be if it were to remain hidden from the people for whom it
is designed? — (U. U., ii., 252.)

r>

CHAPTER II

SOCIAL EVOLUTION

Humanity in its social career has thirty-six periods to pass
through ; I give below a table of the first, which will suffice for
the matter contained in this volume :

Ladder of the First Age of the Social World.

T> . , . . 4. r K. Bastard, without man.

^^dustr ' V- Primitive, termed Eden.

"^ ^' I 2. Savage state or inertia. ^

T J 4- J- -J J (v Patriarchism, small industry. \ ^r^

Industry divided up, I 3 Barbarism, medium indust^^.^

repulsive. j ^ civilisation, large industry.

T J . . ^. (6, Guaranteeism, semi-association.

i"!,'Z,-„f' ''^' -! 7- Sociantism, simple association.

8. Harmonism, composite association.

{■»

attractive.

I make no mention of the ninth and the following periods
because we are not able at present to elevate ourselves beyond
the eighth which, itself, is an infinitely happy one when compared
with the four existing states of society. It will spread suddenly
and spontaneously over the whole of the human race, owing
simply to the influence of profit, pleasure, and, above all, in-
dustrial attraction, — a mechanism with which our statesmen and
moralists are quite unacquainted. — (N. M., ii.)

Each of these periods is subdivided into phases. The following
are the phases of civilisation :

Social Evolution 51

c
o

*-»

• 1-4

c

''5
c

<D
O

CO

<

c Infancy or First Phase.

Simple germ, - Exclusive marriage or monogamy.

Composite „ - Patriarchal or aristocratie feudalism.

Pivot, - - Civil rights of the wi/e.

Counterpoise, - - Great federated vassals.

Tone, - - Chivalric illusions.

Adolescence or Second Phase.

Simple germ, - Communal privileges.

Composite „ - Cultivation of arts and sciences.

Pivot, - - Enfranchisement of labourers.

Counterpoise, - - Representative system.

Tone, - - Illusions of liberty.

Apogee or Plenitude.

Germs : nautical art, experimental chemistry.
Characteristics : clearing of land, fiscal loans.

Virility or Third Phase.

Simple germ, - Mercantile and fiscal spirit

Composite „ - Joint-stock companies.

Pivot, - - Maritime monopoly,

j5 I Counterpoise, - - Anarchical commerce.

Tone, - •- Economic illusions.
/•

Decay or Fourth Phase.

c
o

1-4

C

c
o

CA

Q

Simple germ, - Municipal pawn-shops.

Composite „ - Trade privileges, limited in number.

Pivot, - - Industrial feudalism.

Counterpoise, - - Farmers of feudal monopolies.

V Tone, - - Illusions of association.

(N. M., 387.)
Our destiny is to advance ; every social period must progress

52 Selections from the Works of Fourier

r

towards the one above it: it is Nature's wish that barbarism
should tend towards civilisation and attain to it by degrees ; that
civilisation should tend to guaranteeism, that guaranteeism should
tend to simple association, and so of the other periods. The
same is true of phases : the first must tend towards the second,
this to the third, this again to the fourth, this to the transition
state, and so on in succession. If a society lingers too long in a
period or phase, it engenders corruption like stagnant water.
(This rule is subject to certain exceptions for the periods inferior
to civilisation.)

It is only during the past hundred years that we have been in
the third phase of civilisation ; but in this short space of time the
phase has advanced very rapidly, owing to the colossal progress
of industry; so that to-day the third phase exceeds its natural
limits. We have too much material for a stage so little advanced ;
and, this material not finding its natural employment, there is a
consequent overloading and discomfort in the social mechanism.
This results in a fermentation which taints it ; it develops a great
number of malevolent characteristics, symptoms of lassitude, effects
of the disproportion which exists between our industrial means
and the inferior stage to which they are applied. We have too
much industry for a civilisation so little advanced, detained in the
third phase ; it is besieged by the need of raising itself at least
to the fourth; thence arise the properties of exuberance and
deterioration, of which I shall enumerate the most salient. —
(N. M., 418.)

We shall not follow the right path until we establish guarantee-
ism. It is a stratagem which ought to be employed to oppose
liberalism, a stationary spirit which is incapable of advancing,
and which is enamoured of a characteristic of the second phase, the
representative system^ a little scheme good in a small republic such
as Sparta or Athens, but altogether illusory in a vast and opulent
empire like France. — (N. M., 388.)

Every society has a greater or less admixture of characteristics
taken from superior or inferior periods ; the French, for instance,
have lately adopted the unity of industrial and administrative

Social Evolution S3

relations ; this method, which is one of the characteristics of the
sixth period, was introduced by the uniform metric system and the
civil code of Napoleon, two institutions opposed to the civilised
Order, one of whose characteristics is the incoherence of industrial
and administrative relations. We have, then, on this point,
deviated from Civilisation and worked i?ito the sixth period. We
have worked into it on other points also, notably by religious
toleration. The English, who practise a degree of intolerance
worthy of the twelfth century, are in this respect more civilised
than we. The Germans likewise are more civilised than we as
regards the incoherence of laws, customs, and industrial relations ;
in Germany one encounters at every turn different measures, sorts
of money, laws, and usages, by which means a stranger is robbed
and cheated far more easily than if there were but one kind of
measure, money, code, etc. This chaos of relations is favourable
to the mechanism of civilisation, which seeks, as its aim, to raise
knavery to the highest point ; and this would be attained by fully
developing the sixteen special characteristics of civilisation.

Nevertheless philosophers maintain " that civilisation has been
raised by the adoption of religious toleration, industrial and /
administrative unity." That is expressing one's self very
poorly ; they should have said that the social Order has been raised
and Civilisation lowered ; in reality, if all the sixteen character- -
istics of the sixth period were successively adopted it would result
in the total annihilation of Civilisation,— it would be destroyed
under the belief that it was being perfected. The social Order
would be better organised, but the fifth would have been replaced
by the sixth period. These distinctions of characteristics lead to
an amusing conclusion : it is that the little good to be found in ^
the Civilised Order is due only to features that are contrary t^j
Civilisation, — (Q. M., 127.)

The associative ^ Order will fulfil the wish of the nations, by
securing to all progressive wealth, the object of everyone's desire: as

1 The word "associative" seems to be better fitted than any other English
word to convey the meaning implied by Fourier's term ^^ sociétaire, ^^ ^xiah^s
beenused as the equivalent of that term in this translation. — Tr.

— 7

54 Selections from the Works of Fourier

for Civilisation, from which we are going to emerge, far from its
being the industrial destiny of man, it is but a passing scourge
with which most of the planets are afflicted durmg their first ages;
it is for the human race a temporary malady, like teething for
infants ; it has been prolonged two thousand five hundred years
too long througn the inadventence or the pride of the sophists who
^have disdained all investigation of Association and Attraction ;
in fine, the Savage, Patriarchal, Barbarous, and Civilised forms of
society are but the thorny paths, the ladders which are to lead us
up to the social state which is the destiny of Man, and outside of
which all the efforts of the best rulers are unable in any way to
remedy the ills of mankind.

It is in vain, then. Philosophers, that you accumulate libraries to
search for happiness, while the root of all the social ills has not
been eradicated, — industrial parcelling or incoherent labour which
is the antipodes of God's designs. You complain that Nature re-
fuses you the knowledge of her laws : well ! if you have, up to
the present, been unable to discover them, why do you hesitate to
I recognise the insufficiency of your methods and to seek new ones ?
[^ Either Nature does not desire the happiness of man, or your
n hods are reproved by her, since they have not been able to
w : from her the secret which you are endeavouring to obtain,
you see her refractory to the efforts of physicists as she is to
3 ? No, for they study her laws instead of dictating laws to
; and you only study to stifle the voice of Nature, to stifle the
traction which is the interpreter of her designs, since it leads on
very hand to domestic-agricultural Association.
What a contrast, therefore, between your blunderings and the
achievements of the exact sciences ! Each day you add new
errors to the old ones, while each day sees the physical sciences
advancing upon the road of truth and shedding a lustre upon
modern times equal to the opprobrium which has been cast upon
them by the visions of regeneration of the isophists. — (U. U., ii.,
ia8, 129.)

CHAPTER III

OF THE RÔLE OF THE PASSIONS

All those philosophical whims called duties have no relation
whatever to Nature; duty proceeds from men, Attraction pro-
ceeds from God ; now, if we desire to know the designs of God, '
we must study Attraction, Nature only, without any regard to '
duty, which varies with every age, while the nature of the passions '
has been and will remain invariable among all nations of men. —
(Q. M., 107.)

The learned world is wholly imbued with a doctrine termed
Morality, which is a mortal enemy of passional attraction. ^

Morality teaches man to be at war with himself, to resist his
passions, to repress them, to believe that God was incapable of ^
organising our souls, our passions wisely; that he needed the
teachings of Plato and Seneca in order to know how to distribute
characteristics and instincts. Imbued with these prejudices re-
garding the impotence of God, the learned world was not qualified
to estimate the natural impulses or passional attractions, which
morality proscribes and relegates to the rank of vices.

It is true that these impulses entice us only to evil, if we yield "7
to them individually ; but we must calculate their effect upon a _j
body of about two thousand persons socially combined, and not
upon families or isolated individuals : this is what the learned
world has not thought of; in studying it, it would have recognised
that as soon as the number of associates {sociétaires) has reached
1600, the natural impulses, termed attractions, tend to form
series of contrasting groups, in which everything incites to
industry, become attractive, and to virtue, become lucrative. ^ —
(N. M., 125.)
1 Morality looks upon duplicity of action as the necessary state and

S6 Selections from the Works of Fourier

• The passions, believed to be the enemies of concord, in reality
conduce to that unity from which we deem them so far removed.
But outside of the mechanism termed " exalted^^ emulaiory^ inter-
locked (engrenées) Series, they are but unchained tigers, incompre-
hensible enigmas. It is this which has caused philosophers to
say that we ought to repress them ; an opinion doubly absurd
inasmuch as we can only repress our passions by violence or
absorbing replacement, which replacement is no repression. On
the other hand, should they be efficiently repressed, the civilised
order would rapidly decline and relapse into the nomad state,
where the passions would still be malevolent as with us. The
virtue of shepherds is as doubtftil as that of their apologists, and
our Utopia-makers, by thus attributing virtues to imaginary peoples,
only succeed in proving the impossibility of introducing virtue
into civilisation. — (U. U., iii., 33.)

We are quite familiar with the five sensitive passions tending to
Luxury,^ the four affective ones tending to Groups; it only re-
mains for us to learn about the three distributive ones whose com-
bined impulse produces Series, a social method of which the secret
has been lost since the age of primitive mankind, who were unable
to maintain the Series more than about 300 years. — (Q. M., 118.)

The four affective passions tending to form the four groups of
friendship, love, ambition, paternity or consanguinity are familiar
enough ; but no analyses, or parallels, or scales have been made
of them.

The three others, termed distributive, are totally misunderstood,

immutable destiny of man. It teaches him to resist his passions, to be at war
with them and with himself ; a principle which puts man in a state of war
with God, for his passions and instincts come from God, who has given them
as a guide to man and to all creatures. — (U. U., i., Avant-propos, 27.)

Its companion, Metaphysics^ is no less blind and mischievous. In the study
of man it has conceived everything the wrong way ; disregarding the great
questions of destiny, the designs of God, and the object of attraction, the
interpreter of God, it has engulfed itself in the controversy of the Me, which it
has treated only in the simple mode. It should have divided the me into
simple motive or personal egoism, an inhuman me, a germ of discord and
vice ; and composite motive or multiple corporative egoism ; this is the human
me, germ of harmony and virtue, mainspring of balanced distribution in the
body of industrial series of a social phalanx, — (F. I., 498.)

1 Fourier means by this the five senses. — Ch, G.

Of the Rôle of the Passions 57

and bear only the title of vices, although they are infinitely ^
precious ; for these three possess the property of forming and
directing the series of groups, the mainspring of social harmony.
Since these series are not formed in the civilised order,
the three distributive passions cause disorder only. Let us define
them.i — (U. U., i., 145.)

'loth. The cabalist is the passion that, like love, has the
property of confounding ranks, drawing superiors and inferiors
closer to each other. Everyone must recall occasions when he
has been strongly drawn into some path followed with complete
success.

For instance : electoral cabal to elect a certain candidate ;
cabal on 'Change in the stock-jobbing game ; cabal of two pairs
of lovers, planning a partie carrée without the father's knowledge ;
a family cabal to secure a desirable match. If these intrigues are
crowned with success, the participants become friends ; in spite
of some anxiety, they have passed happy moments together while
conducting the intrigue ; the emotions it arouses are necessities
of the soul.

Far removed from the insipid calm w^hose charms are extolled
by morality, the cabalistic spirit is the true destination of man.
Plotting doubles his resources, enlarges his faculties. Compare
the tone of a formal social gathering, its moral, stilted, languishing
jargon, with the tone of these same people united in a cabal :
they will appear transformed to you; you will admire their
terseness, their animation, the quick play of ideas, the alertness
of action, of decision ; in a word, the rapidity of the spiritual or
material motion. This fine development of the human faculties
is the fruit of the cabalist or tenth passion, which constantly
prevails in the labours and the reunions of a passionate series.

^ Ut. Friendship. Violet. Addition.

Mi. Love. Blue. Divison.

Sol. Paternity. Yellow. Subtraction.

Si. Ambition. Red. Multiplication.

Re. Cabalist. Indigo. Progression.

Fa. Alternating, Green. Proportion.

La. Composite. Orange. Logarithms.

Ut Unityism. White. Powers.

Circle.

Iron.

Ellipse.

Tin.

Parabola.

Lead.

Hyperbola.

Copper.

Spiral.

Silver.

Quad rat rix.

Platinum.

Logarithmic.

Gold.

Cycloid.

Mercury.

<<

c.

58 Selections from the Works of Fourier

As it always results in some measure of success, and as its
groups are all precious to each other, the attraction of the cabals
becomes a potent bond of friendship between all the sectaries
(sectaires), even the most unequal. — (U. U., iv., 339.)

The general perfection of industry will spring, then, from the
passion which is most condemned by the philosophers ; the
cabalist or dissident, which has never been able to obtain among
us the rank of a passion, notwithstanding that it is so strongly
rooted even in the philosophers themselves, who are the greatest
intriguers in the social world.

The cabalist is a favourite passion of women ; they are
excessively fond of intrigue, the rivalries and all the greater and
lesser flights of a cabal. It is a proof of their eminent fitness for
the new social order, where cabals without number will be
needed in every series, periodical schisms, in order to maintain a
movement of coming and going among the sectaries* of the
different groups.

But why these innumerable intrigues, some philosopher will
ask ; why not make all men brothers, all united in opinion, all
enemies of perfidious wealth ?

Why ? It is because man must be provided with springs of
action suitable to the social state for which God has destined us.
If he had created us for the family and dissociated state, he
would have endowed us with soft and apathetic passions, such as
philosophy desires. In studying the serial mechanism, it will be
seen that the spirit of cabal is its most active principle. God, in
order to fit us for the play of the social Series, had to endow us
with a strong inclination for cabal.

Accordingly, men, in all deliberative assemblies became pro-
nounced cabalists. The Deity mocks at them when they address
a stupid prayer to him to make them all brothers, all
united in opinion, according to the wish of Plato and Seneca.
God answers them : " Thousands of millions of years ago I
created the passions such as the unity of the universe demanded ;
I shall not change them to please the philosophers of an imper-
ceptible globule, which must continue, like all the others, subject

Of the Rôle of the Passions 59

to the twelve passions, and particularly to the tenth, the
cabalist."

1 2th. The Composite. — This passion requires in every action a '
composite allurement or pleasure of the senses and of the soul, ;
and consequently the blind enthusiasm which is born only of the ;
mingling of the two kinds of pleasure. These conditions are but -
little compatible with civilised labour, which, far from offering
any allurement either to the senses or the soul, is only a double
torment even in the most vaunted of work-shops, such as the
spinning factories of England where the people, even the children,
work fifteen hours a day, under the lash, in premises devoid of
air.

The composite is the most beautiful of the twelve passions, the
one which enhances the value of all the others. A love is not
beautiful unless it is a composite love, combining the charm of
the senses and of the soul. It becomes trifling or deception if
it limits itself to one of these springs. An ambition is not
vehement unless it brings into play the two springe, glory and
interest. It is then that it becomes capable of ^ brilliant efforts. .

The composite commands so great a respect, that all are agreed
in despising people inclined to simple pleasure. Let a man pro-
vide himself with fine viands, fine wines, with the intention of
enjo)dng them alone, of giving himself up to gormandising by
himself, and he exposes himself to well-merited gibes. But if
this man gathers a select company in his house, where one may
enjoy at the same time the pleasure of the senses by good cheer, (
and the pleasure of the soul by companionship, he will be lauded, ;
because these banquets will be a composite and not a simply
pleasure.

If general opinion despises simple material pleasure, the same
is true as well of simple spiritual pleasure, of gatherings where >
there is neither refreshment, nor dancing, nor love, nor anything
for the senses, where one enjoys oneself only in imagination.^.
Such a gathering, devoid of the composite or pleasure of the
senses and the soul, becomes insipid to its participants, and it is
not long before it "grows bored and dissolves."

6o Selections from the Works of Fourier

/ nth. The Papillonne [Butterfly] ox Alternating, Although
' eleventh according to rank, it should be examined after the
twelfth, because it serves as a link between the other two, the
tenth and the twelfth. If the sessions of the series were meant
to be prolonged twelve or fifteen hours like those of civilised
workmen, who, from morning till night, stupefy themselves by being
engaged in insipid duties without any diversion, God would have
given us a taste for monotony, an abhorrence of variety. But as
the sessions of the series are to be very short, and the enthusiasm
inspired by the composite is incapable of being prolonged beyond
an hour and a half, God, in conformity to this industrial order,
had to endow us with the passion oi papillonnage^ the craving for
periodic variety in the phases of life, and for frequent variety in
our occupations. Instead of working twelve hours with a scant
intermission for a poor, dull dinner, the associative state will
never extend its sessions of labour beyond an hour and a half or
at most two ; besides, it will diffuse a host of pleasures, reunions
of the two sexes terminating in a repast, from which one will
proceed to new diversions, with different company and cabals.

Without this hypothesis of associative labour, arranged in the
order I have described, it would be impossible to conceive for
what purpose God should have given us three passions so
antagonistic to the monotony experienced in civilisation, and so
unreasonable that, in the existing state, they have not even been
accorded the rank of passions, but are termed only vices. ^

A series, on the contrary, could not be organised without the
permanent co-operation of these three passions. They are bound
to intervene constantly and simultaneously in the serial play of
intrigue. Hence it comes that these three passions could not be

' The raania for \2iX\tiy ox papillonnage may indeed be a vice in the civilised
order, which is one incompatible with Nature ; but this passion is none the
less an evident necessity in all the kingdoms : breeds need change, alternation,
crossing ; in default of which they degenerate. The soil, likewise, demands a
change of products and even of seeds ; for a grain will not flourish in the soil
that has produced it; it will succeed better in a neighbouring field. Our
stomachs stand in equal need of this papillonnage ; a periodic variety of food
sharpens the appetite and facilitates digestion.

(

^

Of the Rôle of the Passions 6i

discerned until the invention of the serial mechanism, and that up
to that time they had to be regarded as vices. When the social
order for which God has destined us shall be known in detail, it
will be seen that these pretended vices, the Cabalist^ the Papillonne^
the Composite^ become there three pledges of virtue and riches ;
that God did indeed know how to create passions such as are
demanded by social unity ; that He would have been wrong to
change them in order to please Seneca and Plato; that on the
contrary human reason ought to strive to discover a social condi-
tion which shall be in affinity with these passions. No moral
theory will ever change them, and, in accordance with the rules
of the duality of tendency^^they will intervene for ever to lead us
TCTETHL in the disjointed state or social hmbo, and to good in \
the regime of association or serial labour. — (U. U., iii., 405-411.)

The seven "affective" and "distributive" passions depend
more upon the spirit than upon matter ; they rank as primitives.
Their combined action engenders a collective passion or one formed
by the union of the other seven, as white is formed by the union
of the seven colours of a ray of light ; I shall call this thirteenth
passion Harmonism or Unityism ; it is even less known than the
tenth, eleventh, and twelfth, of which I have not spoken.

Unityism is the inclination of the individual to reconcile his
own happiness with that of all surrounding him, and of all human
kind, to-day so odious. It is an unbounded philanthropy, a
universal good-will, which can only be developed when the entire
human race shall be rich, free, and just. — (Q. M., 121.)

Questions regarding gallantry and the love of eating are treated
facetiously by the Civilised, who do not comprehend the importance
that Gk)d attaches to our pleasures. Voluptuousness is the sole
arm which God can employ to master us and lead us to carry out
his designs ; he rules the universe by Attraction and not by Force;
therefore the enjoyments of his creatures are the most important
object of the calculations of God. — (Q. M., 237.)

I shall, in order to dispose others to share my confidence

62 Selections from the Works of Fourier

explain the object of one of these impulses, accounted as
vicious.

I select a propensity which is the most general and the most
thwarted by education : it is the gluttony of children, their fond-
ness for dainties, in opposition to the advice of the pedagogues
who counsel them to like bread, to eat more bread than their
allowance.

Nature, then, is very clumsy to endow children with tastes so
opposed to sound doctrines ! every child regards a breakfast of
dry bread as a punishment ; he would wish for sugared cream,
sweetened milk — food and pastry, marmalades and stewed fruit,
raw and preserved fruit, lemonades and orangeades, and mild
white wines. Let us observe closely these tastes which prevail
among all children ; on this point a great case is to be adjudged :
the question to be determined is who is wrong, God or
morality ?

dainties : it was in his power to give them a liking for dry bread

and water ; it would have suited the views of morality ; why then

does he knowingly militate against sound civilised doctrines?

Let us explain these motives.

/ God has given children a liking for substances which will be

i the least costly in the associative state. When the entire globe

shall be populated and cultivated, enjoying free-trade, exempt from

all duties, the sweet viands mentioned above will be much

less expensive than bread ; the abundant edibles will be fruit,

\ milk-foods, and sugar, but not bread, whose price will be greatly

I raised, because the labour incident to the growing of grain and

1 the daily making of bread is wearisome and little attractive ;

these kinds of labour would have to be paid much higher than

that in orchards or confectioneries.

And as it is fitting that the food and maintenance of children
should involve less expense than those of their parents, God has
acted judiciously in attracting them to those sweetmeats and
dainties which will be cheaper than bread as soon as we shall
have entered upon the associative state. Then the sound moral

God, dispenser of attraction, gives all children a liking for

Of the Rôle of the Passions 63

doctrines will be found to be altogether erroneous concerning the
nourishment of children, as well as upon all other points which
oppose attraction. It will be recognised that God did well what [
he did^ that he was right in attracting children to milk-foods, fruij^
and sweet pastries ; and that, instead of foolishly losing three
thousand years in declaiming against God's wisest work, against
the distribution of tastes and passionate attractions, it would have
been better to study its aim, by reckoning with all those impulses
combined, which morality insults singly, under the pretext that ^
they are hurtful to the civilised and barbarous orders ; this is true, '
but God did not create the passions for the civilised and barbarous J
orders. If he had wished to maintain these two forms of society
exclusively, he would have given children a fondness for dry
bread, and to the parents a love of poverty, since that is the lot
of the immense majority of mankind in civilisation and barbarism.
— (N. M., 23.)

In the civilised state, love of eating does not ally itself to
industry because the labouring producer does not enjoy the com-
modities which he has cultivated or manufactured. This passion
therefore becomes an attribute of the idle ; and through that alone
it would be vicious, were it not so already by the outlay and the
excesses which it occasions.

In the associative state love of eating plays an entirely opposite
rôle; it is no longer a reward of idleness but of industry ; because
there the poorest tiller of the soil participates in the con-
sumption of choice commodities. Moreover, its only influence
will be to preserve us from excess, by dint of variety, and to
stimulate us to wofk by allying the intrigues of consumption to
those of production, preparation, and distribution. Production
being the most important of the four, let us first state the
principle which must guide it ; it is the generalisation of epicurism.
In point of fact :

If the whole human race could be raised to a high degree of
gastronomic refinement, even in regard to the most ordinary kinds
of food, such as cabbages and radishes, and everyone be given a
competence which would allow him to refuse all edibles which are

64 Selections from the Works of Fourier

mediocre in quality or treatment, the result would be that every
cultivated country would, after a few years, be covered with
delicious productions ; for there would be no sale for mediocre
ones, such as bitter melons, bitter peaches, which certain kinds of
soil yield, upon which neither melons nor peaches would be cul-
tivated ; every district would confine itself to productions which
its soil is capable of raising to perfection ; it would fetch earth for
spots where the soil is poor, or perhaps convert them into forests,
artificial meadows, or whatever else might yield products of good
quality. It is not that the passionate Series do not consume
ordinary eatables and stuffs ; but they desire, even in ordinary
things such as beans and coarse cloth, the most perfect quality
possible, in conformity to the proportions which Nature has
established in industrial attraction.

( The principle which must be our starting-point is, that a general
perfection in industry will be attained by the universal demands and

\ refinement of the consumers^ regarding food and clothings furniture

\jind amusements, — (N. M., 253.)

Of what service would the great perfection of culture in every
variety of production be to the Harmonians if they had to deal
with a public moral and uniform in its tastes, eating only to mod-
erate their passions, and forbidding themselves all sensual refine-
ment, for the benefit of repressive morality. In that case,
the general perfection of products would decline from lack of
appreciation, the cabalistic spirit would lose its activity among the
groups of producers and preparers, agricultural industry would
sink back into rudeness, such as we have to-day, when we find
scarcely a hundredth part of the civilised capable of judging of the
excellence of a commodity ; as a consequence, a vendor who deals
in false wares has ninty-nine chances of selling against one of
rejection : that is why all provisions are so poor in civilisation.

To obviate this disorder, the associative state will train children
to the cabalistic spirit in three directions : in consumption, pre-
paration, and production. It will accustom them from an early
age to develop and direct their taste in regard to every dish,

every savour, and every form of preparing food ; to exact in the

Of the Rôle of the Passions 65

most insignificant viands modes of cooking varied in accordance
with the various tastes ; to form, in short, the cabalistic scale in
consumption, which will result in its being extended to the work
of preparing, preserving, and producing. — (N. M., 71.)

In the civilised order, where labour is repugnant, where the "^
people are too poor to participate in the consumption of choice
foods, and where the epiciire_jsjioLa_x;iUtivator^ epicurism
l acks 2^ direct bond vyjuth j£ullivâtioiï.; it is nothing but sensuality,
simple and ignoble, as is all else which does not attain to composite
mechanism, or the influence of production and consumption
acting upon the same individual. — (U. U., iii., 50.)

The argument would be the same for each of the passions
which you term vices. You will recognise by the theory of the
combined order that all our characteristics are good and
judiciously distributed, that we ought to develop and not correct
Nature.^

Starting from this principle, we must conclude that the greater*
the number of pleasures and the more often they are varied, the]
less shall we be able to abuse them, for pleasures, like labour,!
become a pledge of health when practised in moderation. A
dinner of an hour, diversified by animated conversation which
precludes haste and gluttony, will necessarily be moderate, and
serve to restore and augment our energies, which would be
exhausted by a long repast, liable to be immoderate, such as our
great dinners in civilisation.

Harmony, which will offer, particularly to the rich, a choice of
pleasures every hour, nay, even every quarter of an hour, will
prevent all excesses by the mere fact of the multiplicity of enjoy-
ments ; their frequent succession will be a guarantee of modera-
tion and health. Thenceforth everyone will gain in vigour in /
proportion to the number of his amusements, — an effect contrary
to that produced by them in the civilised mechanism, where the
most voluptuous class is everywhere the one soonest deprived of
vigour. We must not lay the blame of this upon pleasures but
upon the rarity of pleasures^ which gives rise to excesses which

^ See the following chapter on Education,

E

66 Selections from the Works of Fourier

{

seem to justify the moralists in condemning an epicurean mode
of life.

Sanitary order, or equilibrium and moderation in the use
of our senses, will spring, then, from the very abundance of
pleasures which to-day are so pernicious on account of the
excesses provoked by their rarity. — (U. U., iii., 155.)

My theory confines itself to utilising the passions now condemned^
mst as Nature has given them to us and without in any way
changing theni. That is the whole mystery, the whole secret of
the calculus of passionate Attraction. There is no arguing there
whether God was right or wrong in .giving mankind these or those
passions; the associative order avails itself of them without
L changing them, and as God has given them to us. — (U. U., iv.,

157.)
Its mechanism produces co-incidence in every respect between

individual interest and collective interest, in civilisation always
divergent.

It makes use of men as they are, utilising the discords arising
from antipathies, and other motives accounted vicious, and vin-
dicating the Creator from the reproach of a lacuna in providence,
in the matter of general unity and individual foresight.
^ Finally, it in nowise disturbs the established order, limiting
\ itself to trial on a small scale, which will incite to imitation by
the double allurement of quadruple proceeds and attractive
industry. — (F. I., 497.)

CHAPTER IV

OF EDUCATION

There îs no problem upon which people have gone more astray
than upon public instruction and its methods. Nature has, in
this branch of social politics, taken a malign pleasure in all ages
in confounding our theories and their exponents, from the time
of the disgrace incurred by Seneca, the instructor of Nero, to that
of the failures of Condillac and Rousseau, of whom the first
fashioned only a political idiot and the second did not dare to
undertake the education of his own children. — (U. U., iv., i.)

Man is a being made for Harmony and for all kinds of associa-
tion : God has furnished him at every period of life with inclina-
tions adapted to the resources and methods offered by the
associative state. With us these resources are lacking for the
child as well as the grown man ; and as a child deprived of
speech is unable to explain itself, it is of all ages the one which
suffers most by the absence of the associative régime. Infancy,
being less provided with reason than the more advanced ages, is )
so much the more dependent upon the instinçtç, which, under i
existing conditions, are allowed no scope. It avenges itself by '
cries, for its subjection to an education opposed to Nature, cries
wearing to the parent and hurtful to the child. Here, then, are

«

two discontented beings instead of two happy ones such as would
be produced by associative education. Thus even in the tender
age of infancy we meet with this grievous property of civilisation :
the engendering of a double evil instead of the double good which
was destined for us by Nature. — ( U. U., iv., 65.)

68 Selections from the Works of Fourier

Aversion to all useful industry ;
Hatred and derision of superiors ;
Mischievous plotting for destruction ;
Instinct for subjugating and deceiving parents.

This is the civilised child, this the work of philosophy. Were
it not à propos here to say with Beaumarchais, "how stupid
brilliant people are " ? (" que les gens d'esprit sout bêtes J^) — (U. U.,

Jv., 35-)

Civilisation is obliged constantly to employ one of the two

minor groups, that of the family, to criticise the child and try to
set it right. The result of this is a double cross-purpose in the
domestic bond ; on one side, irritation and secret rebellion of the
child, which follows a law of Nature in disdaining the criticism of
the parent and preceptor ; on the other, annoyance and frustra-
tion of the parent, who, reluctantly fulfilling a painful duty, obtains
as his reward only the indifference of the child/ These disagree-
able features disappear completely in Harmony, where the child,
frequenting thirty groups and series, meets a throng of friends and
sectaries, rigid censors of his incompetence : their frankness
quite absolves the parent from remonstrance.-/^ U. U., iii., 347.)

Thereupon great uprising of parents and philosophers.

" You wish, then," they will exclaim, " to take the child away
from its natural teachej, who is the father ?" I do not wish
anything. I do not follow the practice of the sophists who pro-
mulgate their silly whims in education as laws, such as the mania
of plunging a child in winter into cold water, in order to imitate
some republicans of antiquity. I confine myself to analysing the
designs of Attraction. — (U. U., iv., 31.)

It will be observed that in Harmony the only paternal function
of the father is to yield to his natural impulse, to spoil the child,
to humour all his whims.

The child will be sufficiently reproved and rallied by his peers.

When an infant or little child has in the course of the day passed

through half a dozen such groups and undergone their jokes, he

i_ js thoroughly imbued with a sense of his insufficiency/and quite

Of Education 6g

disposed to listen to the advice of the patriarchs and vénérables
who are good enough to offer him instruction.

It will, after that, be of little consequence that the parents at the
child's bed-time indulge themselves in spoiling him, telling him
that he has been treated too severely, that he is really very
charming, very clever ; these effusions will only skim the surface,
Ijiey will not convince. The impression has been made. He is
\ humbled by the railleries of seven or eight groups of little ones ^
which he has visited during the day. /'^ vain will it be for the
father and mother to tell him that the children who have repulsed
him are barbarians, enemies of social intercourse, of gentleness
and kindliness ; all these parental platitudes will have no effect,
and the child on returning to the infantile seristeries the following
day will remember o nly the affronts of the day befor_e ; it is he
who in reality will cure the father of the habit of spoiling, by
redoublin g his effort s . and proving that he is conscious of his
inferiority, — (U. U., iv., 33.)

Harmonic education tends by its methods first of all to develop j
instinctive vocations from the very earliest age, to fit every indi- (
vidual for the different functions for which Nature has destined \
him^^nd from which he is diverted by the methods of civilisation, ^
which, save in rare exceptions, employ everyone in a capacity!
contrary to his vocation. ^_J

" If at birth your star has made you a poet," the teachings of
morality and filial duty will tend to make you, as was the case
with Metastasio, a porter instead of a poet, and all the apparatus
of philosophic wisdom will be set in motion to draw you into
occupations from which Nature wished to keep you aloof. Nine-
tenths of the civilised could give vent to this complaint.

There is no question, therefore, more obscure among us than
that of vocation or the instinct of social functions. This problem
will be fully cleared up by the mechanism ofliarmonic education. >
It never develops a single vocation in the child, but thirty
graduated vocations, with varying degrees of dominance. —
(U. U., iv., 3.)

70 Selections from the Works of Fourier

Nature endows every child with a great number of instincts in
industry, about thirty, of which some are primary or guiding and
lead to those that are secondary.

The point is to discover first of all the primary instincts : the
>- child will seize this bait as soon as it is presented to him ; accord-
ingly, as soon as he is able to walk, to leave the infant seristery,
the male and female nurses in whose charge he is placed hasten
to conduct him to all the workshops and all the industrial reunions
which are close by ; and as he finds everywhere diminutive tools,
an industry in miniature, in which little tots of from two and a
half to three years already engage, with whom he is anxious to
associate, to rummage about, to handle things, at the end of a
fortnight one may discern what are the workshops that attract
him, what his industrial instincts.

The phalanx containing an exceedingly great variety of
occupations, it is impossible that the child in passing from one to
the other should not find opportunities of satisfying several of his
dominant instincts ; these will exhibit themselves at the sight of
the little tools manipulated by other children a few months older
than himself.

According to civilised parents and teachers, children are little
idlers; nothing is more erroneous ; children are already at two and
three years of age very industrious, but we must know the springs
which Nature wishes to put in action to attract them to industry
in the passionate series and not in civilisation.

The dominant tastes in all children are ;

I. Rummaging or inclination to handle everything, examine
everything, look through everything, to constantly change
occupations ;
(^ 2. Industrial commotion, taste for noisy occupations ;

3. Aping or imitative mania.

4. Industrial miniature, a taste for miniature workshops.

5. Progressive attraction of the weak toward the strong.

There are many others ; I limit myself to naming these five
first, which are very familiar to the civilised. Let us examine the

Of Education 71

method to be followed in order to apply them to industry at an
early age.

The male and female nurses will first exploit the mania for
rummaging so dominant in a child of two. He wants to peer
into every place, to handle and examine everything he sees. He
is consequently obliged to be kept apart, in a bare room, otherwise
he would destroy everything.

This propensity to handle everything is a bait to industry ; to
draw him to it, he will be conducted to the little workshops;
there he will see children only two and a half and three years old
using little tools, little hammers. He will wish to exercise his
imitative mania, termed aping ; he will be given some tools, but
he will want to be admitted among the children of twenty-six and
twenty-seven months who know how to work, and who will repel
him.^

He will persist if the work coincides with any of his instincts :
the nurse or the patriarch will teach him some portion of the
work, and he will very soon succeed in making himself useful in

1 A property general among children is aping or the imitative mania. They
wish to try what they see others doing who are more advanced in years. It is
upon this fancy, termed ascending tone, that almost the entire system of
attractive education of little children and infants will be grounded.

The mania referred to is powerfully developed by permitting them to behold
the manœuvres in Harmony, such as these evolutions :
Soldiers at drill ;
Censer-bearers in procession ;
Dancers at the Opera.

Let twenty little children or "tots" be gathered together at random. If
they are given a chance to see these various manœuvres, they will all be eager
to imitate them. In default of a gun, they will each of them take a stick ; in
default of a censer, a stone suspended from a string ; in default of a crook, the
branch of a willow.

If they should be given little guns, little censers, little crooks, you will see
them transported with joy, listening with respectful docility to the instructions
in evolution which a little cherub of six will be good enough to impart to them.
Their enthusiasm will be still more heightened if they should be furnished in
addition with costumes and paraphernalia, if they should be given little grena-
dier caps, little surplices for the procession, little reeds for the chorégraphie
figures.— (U. U., iv., 28.)

72 Selections from the Works of Fourier

some trifling things which will serve him as an introduction ; let
us examine this effect in regard to an inconsiderable kind of
labour, within the reach of the smallest children, — the shelling
and sorting of green peas. This work which with us would
occupy the hands of people of thirty, will be consigned to
children of two, three, four years of age : the hall is provided
with inclined tables containing a number of hollows ; two little
ones are seated at the raised side ; they take the peas out of the
shell, the inclination of the table causes the grains to roll towards
the lower side where three tots are placed of twenty-five, thirty,
thirty-five months, charged with the task of sorting, and furnished
with special implements.

The thing to be done is to separate the smallest peas for the
sweetened ragout, the medium ones for the bacon ragout, and the
largest for the soup. The child of thirty-five months first selects
the little ones which are the most difficult to pick out ; she sends
all the large and medium ones to the next hollow, where the child
of thirty months shoves those that seem large to the third hollow,
returns the little ones to the first, and drops the medium grains
into the basket. The infant of twenty-five months, placed at the
third hollow, has an easy task ; he returns some medium grains
to the second, and gathers the large ones into his basket.

It is in this third rank that the infant débutant will be placed \
he will mingle proudly with the others in throwing the large grains
into the basket ; it is very trifling work, but he will feel as if he
had accomplished as much as his companions ; he will grow
enthusiastic and be seized by a spirit of emulation, and at the
third séance he will be able to replace the infant of twenty- five
months, to send back the grains of the second size into the second
compartment, and to gather up only the largest ones, which are
^easily distinguished. — (N. M., i8i.)

If civilised education developed in every child its natural

inclinations, we should see nearly all rich children enamoured of

various very plebeian occupations, such as that of the mason, the

L carpenter, the smith, the saddler./'^ have instanced Louis the

XVI. who loved the trade of locksmith; an Infanta of Spain

Of Education 73

preferred that of shoemaker ; a certain king of Denmark gratified
himself by manufacturing syringes ; the former king of Naples
loved to sell the fish he had caught in the market-place himself;
the prince of Parma, whom Condillac had trained in meta-
physical subtilties, in the understanding of intuition, of cognition,
had no taste but for the occupation of church-warden and
lay-brother.

The great majority of wealthy children would follow these
plebeian tastes,/if~^ivilised education did not oppose the \
development of them; and if the filthiness of the workshops •
and the coarseness of the workmen did not arouse a repugnance ,'
stronger than the attraction. /What child of a prince is there who
has no taste for one of the four occupations I have just mentioned,
that of mason, carpenter, smith, saddler, and who would not
advance in them if he beheld from an early age the work carried
on in bright workshops, by refined people, who would always
arrange a miniature workshop for children, with little implements
and light labour ? — (U. U., iii., 543.)

No attempt will be made, as is the case in existing educational
methods, to create precocious little savants^ intellectual primary
school beginners, initiated from their sixth year in scientific sub-
tilties ; the endeavour will by preference be to secure mechanical
precocity ; capability in bodily industry, which, far from retarding
the growth of the mind, accelerates it.

If one wishes to observe the general inclination of children of
from four and a half to nine years of age, he will see that they are
strongly drawn to all material exercises, and very little to studies ;
it is right then, that, in accordance with the desire of nature or
attraction, the cultivation of the material should predominate at
that age.

Why this impulse of childhood toward material exercises?
Because Nature wishes, above all, to make man husbandman and
manufacturer, to lead him to wealth before leading him to
science. — (U. U., iv., 73, 74.)

The point is to determine what influence may be exerted over
the physical constitution of children and the developments of the

74 Selections front the Works of Fourier

human body by an integral play of the faculties and attractions
of the soul^ combined with the integral exercise of the faculties of the
body by means of proportional gymnastics, — (U. U., iv., i88.)

Associative education regards the body of the child as an
accessory and coadjutor of the soul. It looks upon the soul as
upon a great lord who will not enter his castle until the intendant
has put all the roads in proper order. It begins by mouldin g the
body at aq eârJiy_agfi. to all the uses which will be confor mable to.
the harmonic- soul» that is to say, to justice^ to truthy to combina-
tionsy and to unity.

And in order to accustom the body to all these " perfections "
before moulding the mind, two resources quite foreign to our
present methods are brought into play ; they are, among others,
the OPERA and cookery. Let us demonstrate that there is nothing
arbitrary in this selection, that it is methodically obligatory.

Of the five senses there is one, that of touchy whose influence is
almost null before the age of puberty. A child does not know
love, the chief branch of the sense of touch ; for the rest, he is quite
indifferent regarding the other pleasures pertaining to touch,
being satisfied with a wooden seat, a bed of rushes, coarse cloth ]
he disdains a stuffed arm-chair, a soft bed, costly furs. The
niceties of touch have no value whatever in his eyes, but he is
strongly inclined to the enjoyments of the other four senses which
he should exercise.

the two active ones taste and smelly by cookery :

the two passive ones sight and hearings by the opera.

These are the two points to which attraction guides him ; chil-
dren and cats would forever be haunting the kitchen, if they
were not chased away. As for the magic of the opera, and
visible fairy-land, there is nothing more enticing for a child. —
(U. U., iv., 76.)

Now, when seven-eighths of the children are devoted to
playing in opera and to busying themselves with cooking, will
they be worth less on that account ? That is what we are going
to investigate.

Let us observe, first, that in order to make a perfect agriculturist

Of Education 75

of the child, as regards the management of animal and vegetable
products, he must be initiated very early in the refinements of
that cooking, that gastronomy, proscribed by the fierce lovers of
radishes and "black broth.'* — (U. U., iv., 104.)

We remark everywhere that the class which is the most temperate
at table is that of cooks; they are generally epicures, severe
judges, partaking indeed of all the dishes, but without going to
any excess. They are proportionally the most sober of the
classes that have access to good cheer without limit.

The best preservative against gluttony, then, for children as
well as parents, would be an order of thiiigs where they would^all
become cooks and refined gourmandsi otherwise called gastronomes.
As regards the opera, being with us nothing but an arena of
gallantry and an allurement to expenditure, it is not to be
wondered at that it is reprobated by the moral and religious class ;
but in harmony it is an amicable reunion, free of charge ; it cannot
be the occasion of any vicious intrigues between people who meet
each other every moment in the various occupations of the
industrial series. — (U. U., iv., 79.)

CHAPTER V

OF THE CONDITION OF WOMEN ^

Every period has a certain characteristic which forms }ihQ pivot
of mechanism, and the absence or presence of which determines
the change of periods. This characteristic is always derived from
love. In the fourth period it is the absolute servitude of woman ;
in the fifth period it is exclusive marriage and civil liberties of the
wife; in the sixth period it is the amorous corporation which
ensures women the privilege of which I have spoken above. If
a barbarous people adopted exclusive marriage, they would in a
short time become civilised through this innovation alone ; if we
adopted the seclusion and sale of women, we should in a short
time become barbarous through this single innovation; and if
we adopted the amorous guarantees, we should find in this single
measure an exit from civilisation and an entrance into the sixth
period.

If God has endowed amorous customs with such great influence
upon the social mechanism and upon the metamorphoses which
it is capable of undergoing, this must be a consequence of his
horror of oppression and violence ; he desired the well-being or
the misery of human societies to be proportional to the constraint
or freedom which they would allow. Now God recognises as
freedom only that which is extended to both sexes and not to
one alone; he desired, likewise, that all the seeds of social
abominations such as savagery, barbarism, civilisation, should
have as their sole pivot the subjection of women, and that all the
seeds of social well-being such as the sixth, seventh, eighth

1 See chap. ii. on Evolution,

Of the Condition of Women 77

periods should have no pivot but the progressive enfranchisement
of the weak sex. — (Q. M., 131.)

As a general proposition : Social advances and changes of periods
are brought about by virtue of the progress of women towards
liberty^ and the decadences of the social order are brought about by
virtue of the decrease of liberty of women.

Other events influence these political vicissitudes ; but there is
no cause which so rapidly produces social progress or decline as
a change in the condition of women. I have already said that
the adoption of closed harems would of itself soon transform
us into barbarians, and the opening of the harems would of itself
cause a people to pass from barbarism to civilisation. To sum
up, the extension of privileges to women is the general principle of
all social progress, — (Q. M., 195.)

It is not always an advantage to introduce a characteristic of a
higher period ; it may in certain cases become perverted by this
political transplanting, and produce evil consequences ; witness
free divorce^ which is a characteristic of the sixth period, and
which has produced so much disorder in civilisation that it has
been necessary to assign to it the narrowest limits. Nevertheless,
free divorce is a very salutary custom in the sixth period, and
there contributes eminently to domestic harmony ; for it is there
combined with other characteristics which do not exist in civilisa-
tion. We may see by this, that discretion must be employed in
introducing a characteristic of one period into another, just as
in transporting a plant into a climate not its own.^ It was a

^ "All these new regenerators, Owen, Saint-Simon, and others, are strongly
inclined to speculate upon the emancipation of women ; they do not under-
stand that before making any changes in the established order regarding the
relations of love, many years are needed to create guarantees which do not
now exist. ... On the other hand, modifications in the regulation of love
will only be applicable to a polished generation, educated entirely in the New
Order, and faithful to certain laws of honour and delicacy which the Civilised
make a sport of violating. A man is applauded in France if he succeeds in
deceiving women and husbands ; the morals of the Civilised are a sink of vice
and duplicity. A generation trained to such usages could not but abuse an
extension of liberty in love. ..."

"And when the admission of these liberties would be suitable as far as
fortune and manners are concerned, they will be introduced only by degrees and
not suddenly. . . . Each liberty will be admitted only after it shall have been

78 Selections front the Works of Fourier

mistake to suppose that unlimited religious toleration could be
fitted for the civilised; in the long run, it would produce in
agricultural states more evil than good if it did not accept
religions which are characterised by the morals of the fourth,
third, and second periods, such as Mohammedanism, Judaism,
and idolatry. As for the present, their admission is a matter of
indifference, since civilisation is drawing to its close. — (Q. M.,
129.)

I do not mean to criticise civilised education here, or to in-
sinuate that we ought to inspire women with a spirit of liberty.
Assuredly, it is necessary that each social period should fashion
its youth to reverence the dominant absurdities \ and if in the
barbarous order it is necessary to brutalise women, to persuade
them that they have no souls, so as to dispose them to allow
themselves to be sold in the market or shut up in a harem, it is
likewise necessary in the civilised order to stupefy women from
their infancy, so as to make them fit the philosophic dogmas, the
servitude of marriage, and the debasement of falling into the
power of a husband whose character will perhaps be the opposite
of theirs. Now, since I should blame a barbarian who trained
his daughters for the usages of the civilised state in which they
will never live, I should likewise blame a civilised man who
trained his daughters in a spirit of liberty and right peculiar to
the sixth and seventh periods, which we have not attained.^

If I accuse the prevailing education and the servile spirit with

voted for throughout the entire globe, by the fathers and husbands ; then it
may be believed to be useful. The effect of these liberties will be a powerful
contribution to the charm of labour, the increase of production, and the reign
of loyal morals ; but in civilisation we should witness only the production of
the three J opposite effects." (1831, Pug et Chart, des deux sect S^-Sim, et
Ow., p. 53)-— (Q- M., 155.)

iTo speak plainly, the fathers play a vile rôle in civilisation when they have
any daughters to marry off. I can conceive how paternal affection may blind
them to the infamy of the manœuvres and cajoleries to which they resort in
order to entice marriageable men ; but they can at least not blind themselves
as to the anxieties and contemptibleness of such a rôle. How ardently ought
those who are overburdened with daughters to desire the invention of a new
domestic Order, where marriage no longer exists, and where one is reheved of
the care of providing girls with husbands, and what fervent thanks do they
owe him who brings them this invention I — (Q. M., 168.)

Of the Condition of Women 79

which it inspires women, I speak in relation to other societies
where it will be unnecessary to pervert their character by force
of prejudices. I indicate to them the distinguished position
they might attain, following the example of those who have over-
come the influences of education and resisted the oppressive
system which the conjugal tie necessitates. In pointing to those
women who have succeeded in spreading their wings, from
viragos like Maria Theresa to those of a milder shade,
like the Ninons and the Sévignés, I am justified in saying
that woman in a state of liberty will excel man in all functions
of the mind or the body which are not the attributes of physical
force.

Already does man seem to have a premonition of this ; he
becomes indignant and alarmed when women belie the prejudice
which accuses them of inferiority. Masculine jealousy has burst
forth above all against women writers ; philosophy has eliminated
them from academic honours and thrust them ignominiously back
to household concerns.

Was not this affront the proper due of learned women ? The
slave who wishes to ape his master merits from him only a glance
of contempt What concern had they with the vulgar glory of
composing a book, of adding a few volumes to the millions of
useless ones already in existence ? What women were called to
produce was not writers but liberators, a political Spartacus,
geniuses who would devise means for raising their sex from
degradation.

It is upon women that civilisation weighs ; it was for women to
attack it. What is their existence to-day ? They live only by
privation, even in industry, where man has invaded everything
down to the petty occupations of sewing and the pen, while
women are to be seen drudging at the painful labours of the field.
Is it not scandalous to see athletes of thirty stooping over a desk,
or transporting a cup of coffee with their shaggy arms, as if women
and children were lacking to attend to these trifling duties of the,
desk and the household ?
What, then, are the means of subsistence for women without a

8o Selections front the Works of Fourier

fortune ? The distaff or it may be their charms, if they possess
any. Yes, prostitution more or less veiled is their sole resource,
and philosophy denies them even that ; this is the abject fate to
which they are reduced by that civilisation, that conjugal slavery,
which they have not even thought of attacking. That was the
only problem worthy of engaging women writers ; their indolence
in regard to it is one of the causes which have increased man's
contempt. Slavery is never more contemptible than when by a
blind submission it convinces the oppressor that his victim is bom
for slavery. — (Q. M., 220, 221.)

Civilised love, in marriage, is, at the end of a few months, or
perhaps the second day, often nothing but pure brutality, chance
coupling, induced by the domestic tie, devoid of any illusion of
the mind or of the heart : a result very common among the
masses where husband and wife, surfeited, morose, quarrelling
with each other during the day, become necessarily reconciled
upon retiring, because they have not the means to purchase two
beds, and contact, the brute spur of the senses, triumphs a
moment over conjugal satiety. If this be love, it is a love most
material and trivial.

And yet this is the snare upon which philosophy reckons to
transform the most gracious of the passions into a source of
political dupery, to excite the rapid growth of population, and
stimulate the poor by the sight of their progeny in rags. What a
noble rôle assigned to love, in exchange for the freedom ravished
from her ! She is made among the civilised a provider of food
for cannon ; and among barbarians, a persecutor of the weaker
half of humanity : these are, under the names of harem and
marriage, the honourable functions which are assigned to love by
our pretended lovers of liberty !

Confounded by the vices of their love-polity, they repel every
suggestion of estimating the properties of free love. Ignorant
and deceitful as to the proper uses of liberty, they desire it to be
unlimited in commerce, where crime and roguery everywhere
require the curb of the law ; and they deprive love of all liberty —
love, whose vast scope in the passionate series would lead to all

Of fhe Condition of Women 8i

virtues, to all wonders in social politics. What an unlucky
science they make, these civilised theories ; what an instinct
of opposition to all the desires of nature and of truth ! —
(U. U., iv., 462.)

F

PART SECOND

CHAPTER VI

OF THE VICES OF CIVILISATION

Authors of the uncertain sciences, who pretend to labour for the
good of the human race, do you believe that six hundred million
barbarians and savages form no part of the human race ? Yet
they suffer; well, what have you done for them? Nothing.
Your systems are only applicable to civilisation.

Far from succeeding in civilising and uniting the human race,
your theories gain only the profound contempt of the barbarians,
and your customs excite only the irony of the savage; his strongest
imprecation against an enemy is to wish him our fate, and to say
to him : " May you be reduced to working a field!" Words which
may be regarded as a malediction uttered by Nature itself. Yes,
civilised industry is reproved by Nature, since it is abhorred by
free peoples who would embrace it at once if it accorded with the
passions of man. — (Q. M., 408.)

If industry has made some progress in Europe, has it not lost
immense regions in Asia ? If Civilisation has founded in America
feeble colonies, already threatened with decadence by the revolt of
the negroes, has it not lost at the gateway of Europe the vastest em-
pires — Egypt, Greece, Asia Minor, Carthage, Chaldea, and a part of
Western Asia? Industry has been stifled in extensive and beautiful
countries like Bactriana, where it was beginning to be introduced ;

Of the Vices of Civilisation 83

the empire of Samarkand, famous of old in the Orient, and all
the regions stretching from the Oxus to the mouths of the
Indus, have retrograded politically and reorganised the Horde. —
(Q. M., 411.)

However, social order, in spite of the impotence of such guides,
yet makes some progress, such as the suppression of slavery ; but f
what slowness in conceiving and executing the right ! Twenty
centuries of science elapsed before the least alleviation of the lot
of the slave was proposed ; thousands of years, then, are needed
to open our eyes to a truth, to suggest an act of justice ! Our 1
sciences, which boast their love of the people, are totally ignorant
of the means of protecting them.

It is to chance, therefore, and not to the political and moral
sciences that we owe our feeble advances in the spirit of society ;
but chance makes us purchase each discovery with centuries of
stormy trials. The movement of our societies may be compared
to that of the sloth, whose every step is counted by a groan ; like
it, civilisation advances with an inconceivable slowness through
political torments; with each generation it tries new systems
which only serve, like briers, to stain with blood those who take
hold of them. — (Q. M., 148, 149.)

It is, above all, in industrial policy that our century displays its "~|
pride ; proud of some material strides, it does not perceive that '
it is retrograding politically, and that its rapid advance is that of
the crab, which moves, but moves backward.

Industrialism is the latest of our scientific chimeras ; it is the
mania of producing in confusion, without any system of propor- |
tional compensation, without any guarantee to the producer or
wage-earner that he will participate in the increase of wealth ;
accordingly, we find the industrial regions sprinkled with beggars
to as great, or, perhaps, a greater extent than those countries
which are indifferent to this sort of progress. -^

Let us judge systems here by their results ; it is England that
is the point aimed at, the model offered to the nations, the object
of their jealousy ; in order to estimate the happiness of its people,
I shall fortify myself by unexceptionable testimony.

84 Selections from the Works of Fourier

Assembly of master-workmen of Birmingham^ March 21, 1827.
It declares " that the industry and frugality of the working man
are unable to shield him from want, that thejnass of j^age^eamers
employed in^ agriculture are destitute; that they actually die of
hunger in a country where there is a superabundance of food.*'
^ Testimony all the less open to suspicion in that it proceeds from
the class of foremen who are interested in justifying the wages of
the working-men and disguising their wretchedness.

Here is a second witness, equally interested in concealing the
weak side of his nation ; it is an economist, an industrialist, who
is going to denounce his own science.

London, House of Commons, February 28, 1826.

Mr, Huskisson, Minister of Commerce, says : " Our silk factories

employ thousands of children who are held in leash from three

o'clock in the morning until ten o'clock at night : how much do

they get a week ? a shilling and a half, thirty-seven French sous,

; about five and a half sous per day, for being tied down to their

j work nineteen hours, superintended by foremen provided with

^ whips with which they strike every child that stops for a moment,"

This is slavery actually restored : it is evident that the excess of
industrial competition leads civilised nations to the same degree
of poverty and servitude as the populace of China and Hindus-
tan, most anciently famous by their prodigies in agriculture and
manufactures.

Alongside of England let us place Ireland, which, by double
excess in extreme cultivation and in sub-division of properties,
has arrived at the same condition of destitution which England
attains by double excess in manufactures and great estates. This
contrast in one and the same empire well demonstrates the vicious
circle of civilised industry.

The newspapers of Dublin (1826) say : " There is an epidemic
prevailing here among the people : the sick that are taken to the
hospital recover as soon as they have been given food." Their
sickness, then, is hunger : one need not be a sorcerer to divine
that, since they are cured as soon as they have something to eat
Have no fear that this epidemic will attack the great : you will

Of the Vices of Civilisation 85

not see either the Lord-Lieutenant or the Archbishop of Dublin
fall ill from hunger, but rather from indigestion.

And in places where the civilised masses do not die of pressing
hunger, they die of slow hunger through privations, of speculative
hunger which constrains them to nourish themselves with un-
wholesome food, of imminent hunger through overwork, through
engaging in pernicious pursuits, enduring excessive fatigue, which
gives birth to fevers, to infirmities.

Our economists, confounded at beholding the tenacity and
even progress of indigence, begin to suspect that their science is
on the wrong track; a discussion on this subject took place
recently between MM. Say and Sismondi ; the latter, returned
from an inspection of the prodigies beyond the Channel, de-
clared that England and Ireland, with their colossal industry, are
nothing but vast conglomerations of the poor ; that industrialism
up to the present is only a region of chimeras. M. J. B. Say
made a reply defending the honour of the science ; but, to speak
plainly, political economy lost its bearings in the plethoric crisis
of 1826 ; it is trying to justify itself. Already we hear the heads
of the school, as for example the late Dugald Stewart, say that the
science is restricted to a passive rale^ that its task is limited to
the analysis of existing evil.

That is to act like a physician who should say to his patient :
" My ministry consists in making an analysis of your fever, and
not in pointing out to you the means of curing it" Such a phy-
sician would appear ridiculous to us ; nevertheless that is the rôle
that some economists wish to assume to-day; perceiving that
their science has only succeeded in aggravating the evil, and at a
loss to find an antidote, they say to us, like the fox to the goat :
" Try to get out of it, and use all your efforts."

If we grant this passive ràle^ this egoism, by which they believe
they excuse the impotence of the science, they will still find great
trouble in keeping their word, in giving the analysis of the evil ;
for they do not wish to acknowledge its extent, to admit that
everything is vicious in the industrial system, that it is every way
a world turned inside out. Let us judge of it by a half-confession

86 Selections front the Works of Fourier

^ . Bill _ ^^^" ^

which recently escaped M. Sismondi : he has recognised that
consumption operates in an inverted manner^ that it is based upon
the whims of the idle, and not upon the well-being of the
producer ; this is at any rate a first step towards analytical sin-
cerity. But this inverted mechanism, is it limited to consumption ?
is it not evident :
f~ That exchange is inverted^ carried on by intermediaries called
merchants^ traders^ who, becoming owners of the product, levy
tribute upon the producer and the consumer, and sow disorder
. in the industrial system by their underhand dealings in monopolies,
1 stock-jobbing, cheating, extortion, bankruptcy, etc.

That competition is inverted, tending to the reduction of wages,
and leading the people to indigence through the progress in
industry ; the more it increases, the more is the labourer obliged
to accept very low remuneration for labour too much contended
for ; and on the other hand, the more the number of merchants
increases, the more are they drawn to cheating, through the
difficulty of realising any profit.

Here are already three forces directed in an inverted manner,
in the industrial mechanism ; I could readily name thirty of
them ; why admit only one, that of inverted consumption ?

Industry offers a subversion far more striking; this is the
opposition of tHe two kinds of interest^ collective and individual
Every person engaged in an industry is at war with the mass, and
malevolent toward it from personal interest. A physician wishes
his fellow-citizens good, genuine cases of fevers, and an attorney
good lawsuits in every family. An architect has need of a good
conflagration which should reduce a quarter of the city to ashes,
and a glazier desires a good hail-storm which should break all the
panes of glass. A tailor, a shoemaker, wishes the public to use
only poorly-dyed stuffs and shoes made of bad leather, so that a
triple amount may be consumed, — for the benefit of trade ; that
is their refrain. A court of justice regards it opportune that
France continues to commit a hundred and twenty thousand
crimes and actionable offences, that number being necessary to
maintain the criminal courts. It is thus that in civilised industry

Of the Vices of Civilisation 87

~ I I ■ I 1 1 I I ■ I

every individual is in intentional war against the mass ; necessary)
result of anti-associative industry or an inverted world. We shall
see this absurdity disappear in the associative regime^ where each
individual will find his advantage only in that of the mass.

Of all the indications that ought to make us suspect the industry
of to-day, there is none more striking than that of the simple
scale of distribution. I mean by simple^ a scale which increases
only on one side and not on the other ; here is an example
adapted to the five classes :

Poor.

Straitened.

Medium.

Easy.

Ric

A

I

2

4

8

B

I

2

4

8

16

C

2

4

8

16

32

D

4

8

16

32

64

E

8

16

32

64

128

Line A represents the beginnings of society, where the V
difference of fortunes was but little noticeable, where the poor
class, denoted by o, did not exist.

According as the public wealth increases, as we see in lines
B, C, D, E, the poor class ought to participate in it in the pro-
portion indicated in each of those lines, that is to say that in the
degree of wealth marked E, the rich, having 128 francs a day to
spend, the poor would have at least 8 francs ; in that case the
scale would be composite, increasing in proportion for the five
classes, and without equality.

But in civilisation, the scale, increasing only on one side, the
poor class always remains at zero, so that when wealth has reached
the fifth degree, E, the rich class, receives indeed its share of 128
francs, and the poor only zero ; for it has always less than the
necessaries of life ; so that the civilised class follows the transverse
line o, 2, 8, 32, 128, and the multitude, or poor class, far from
sharing in the increase of wealth, gathers from it only added
privations ; for it sees a greater variety of commodities which it
cannot enjoy ; it is not even sure of obtaining repugnant labour

88 Selections from the Works of Fourier

which is its torment, and which offers no advantage but that of
saving it from starvation.

In this respect, indolent nations like the Spanish are more
fortunate than industrious ones, for the Spaniard is sure of finding
work when it shall please him to accept it. The French, the
English, the Chinese, do not enjoy this advantage.

I do not conclude from this that the social régime of Spain is
laudable, far from it ; I merely wish to reach the point indicated
by the heading of this article, to demonstrate that everything is a
vicious circle in fragmentary {morcelé) or civilised industry; it
creates, by its progress, the elements of happiness, but not
happiness itself; that can only be created by the régime of
industrial attraction and proportional distribution in conformity
with line E. This distribution is impossible so long as industry
is repugnant ; the masses must continue in extreme destitution in
order that they should contrive to carry it on. Besides, civilisa-
tion producing hardly a quarter of what would be produced by
association, and multiplying in population beyond measure, it
would be impossible to secure to these swarms a minimum share,
or the real necessities of life.

This vicious circle of industry has been so clearly recognised,
that people on all sides are beginning to suspect it, and feel
' astonished that^ in civilisation^ poverty should be the offspring of
abundance.

After having proved that the lot of the civilised masses must of
necessity be unfortunate,. let us remark that the progress of
industry adds little or nothing to the happiness of the rich. The
bourgeoisie of Paris, to-day, has more beautiful furniture, prettier
gew-gaws, than the great of the seventeenth century ; what does
that add to happiness ? Our ladies with their Cashmere shawls,
are they happier than the Sévignés, the Ninons? We see at
present the petty bourgeois of Paris served in vessels of gilded
porcelain ; are they happier than the ministers of Louis XIV.,
the Colberts, the Louvois, who had dishes of earthenware ?

There is beyond doubt real enjoyment in improvements
affecting comfort and health such, for example, as the springs

Of the Vices of Civilisation 89

of carriages ; but one grows blasé after a week regarding the
refinements of visual luxury, such as porcelain ; they only serve ^
to excite the cupidity of the poor, who imagine that the wealthy ^
classes find great happiness in the possession of these baubles.
They will only be useful in the associative order, where they will
have the double property of stimulating industrial attraction and
of multiplying the harmonies of the passions, which are indeed a
real enjoyment, and which will be shared by the poor, as well as
the rich, in spite of the extreme inequality of fortunes. Then
the poorest of men will have many more pleasures than the most
opulent monarch of to-day, because the order termed passionate
Series creates social harmonies or pleasures of the soul, which at
present are well-nigh unknown to the great, and it raises sensual
refinements to a perfection of which the civilised world is
incapable of forming any conception.

Civilised industry, therefore, I repeat, can only create the
elements of happiness, but not happiness itself. It will, on the
contrary, be demonstrated that excess of industry leads civilisation
to very great misfortunes, if the methods of real progress in the
social scale are left undiscovered. — (Q. M., 28, 29, 33, 35.)

What is to-day the number of active and positive labourers ? It
does not amount to more than a third of the population. I have
proved that a labourer, apparently useful, often performs only a
negative labour, such as a wall of enclosure, which is not a real
and positive production.

In the parallel between the labours of civilisation and of
Harmony, it will be seen that null or negative functionaries
constitute two-thirds of the population ; namely :

Table of Non-productives in Civilisation.

Domestic parasites. Social parasites. Accessory parasites.

4. Armies.

1. Women. 5. Fiscal Officials. 9. Stoppage.

2. Children. 6. Manufactures, 10. Sophists.

3. Servants. 7. Commerce. 11. Idlers.

8. Transportation. 12. Seceders.

Agents of positive destruction.
Agents of negative creation.

90 Selections from the Works of Fourier

f

Domestic Parasites.

1° Three-fourths of the women of cities and half of those of the
country, through absorption in the labours of the household and
in domestic complications. Accordingly their day is estimated,
in economics, at only one-fifth of that of a man.

2° Three-fourths of the children, entirely useless in cities and
of little use in the country, considering their unskilfulness and
their mischievousness.

3** Three-fourths of household domestics not cultivators,
whose labour is only the consequence of complication, particularly
in cooking, and half of the servants of the stable, servants of
luxury and of the products of luxury, who, being necessary only
by reason of industrial division, become superfluous in
Association.

These three classes composing the household form a class apart
in the series of parasites. They will cease to figure there in the
associative order, where judicious distribution, the proper employ-
ment of the sexes and of services, will reduce to one-fourth or
one-fifth the number of hands brought into requisition to-day by
the immense complication of separated households or incoherent
families.

Social Parasites.

4^ The armies of the land and sea, which divert from industry
the sturdiest youth and the largest amount of taxes, dispose that
youth to depravity, by constraining it to sacrifice to a parasitic
function the years which it ought to employ in disposing itself to
labour, for which it loses the taste in the military state.

The apparatus of men and machines which is termed an army
is employed in producing nothing, waiting to be employed in
destruction. This second function will be spoken of later. Here
we are considering the army only in its aspect of stagnation.

5^ The legions of administration. We see that in France

Of the Vices of Civilisation 91

the customs alone absorb 24,000 men : add to this the tax-
gatherers and other armies of clerks, fieldkeepers, gamekeepers,
spies, etc., in fine, all complicated administration, such as that of
the finances and others which will be needless in an order where
each Phalanx will pay its taxes at a stated time and upon a simple
notice from the minister.

6° A full half of the manufactures reckoned useful, but which
are relatively unproductive through the poor quality of the
things manufactured ; things which upon the hypothesis of
general excellence would reduce the present waste and manu-
facture one-half, and in many instances three-fourths in works
undertaken for the Government, which all are agreed to cheat.

7° Nine-tenths of the merchants and commercial agents,
since true commerce, or the associative method, accomplishes
this class of service with a tenth of the agents employed in it by
the existing complicated order.

8° Two-thirds of the agents of transportation by land and sea,
who are improperly included in the commercial class, and who,
to the vice of complicated transportation, add that of adventurous
transportation, notably upon the sea, where their ignorance and
improvidence increase the number of shipwrecks tenfold.

Let us place in this category smugglings which often results in
making the sum of the movements and agents ten times as great
as would be employed in direct transportation. Goods being
carried from Dover to Calais have been known to pass through
Hamburg, Frankfort, Basle, and Paris; to travel 500 leagues
instead bf 7, all for the equilibrium of commerce and of
perfectibility.

Accessory Parasites.

Stoppages, legal, accidental and secret ; people inactive, be it
through lack of work or for the sake of recreation. They would
refuse this inaction under the régime of attractive labour ; they
stretch it on the contrary to double of the legal concessions.

92 Selections from the Works of Fourier

desisting from labour on Saint-Monday^ the most ruinous of all
the saints, for he is feted 52 days a year in manufacturing towns.

Let us add the various fêtes — corporation, revolution, carnival,
patronage, marriage, and so many others upon which people would
not desire to leave off work in an order in which the industrial
gatherings will be more agreeable than the feasts and balls of the
civilised.

Under abstention from labour we must reckon accidental
stoppage. If the master is out of sight, the labourers stop ; if
they see a man or a cat pass all are in a stir, masters and servants,
^ leaning upon their spades and gazing in order to divert them-
"^ selves : forty, fifty times a day do they lose five minutes in that
way. Their week hardly amounts to four full days. What an
amount of stoppage in the absence of industrial attraction !

10° The SOPHISTS, and, first of all, the controversialists
[legists] ; those who read them and mingle at their instigation in
party affairs, in unproductive cabals. To controversial labour,
which confuses every subject, must be added the political
commotions and industrial distractions of which it is the cause.

The list of controversialists and sophists would be far more
extensive than one might think, if we spoke of jurisprudence
alone, which seems a pardonable sophism ; let us suppose that
the associative order does not engender a twentieth part of the
present litigations, and that, to settle these few differences, it
possesses means as expeditious as ours are complicated \ the con-
clusion is that nineteen-twentieths of the bar are parasites, as well
as the litigants, the witnesses, the journeys, etc., etc. How many
other parasites in sophism, beginning with the economists, who
inveigh against the body of parasites whose standard-bearers they
are.

II? The IDLE, people said to be comme il faut^ who pass their
lives in doing nothing. Let us add to them their valets and the
entire class that serves them. One is unproductive if he serves
unproductive people, as is the case with the solliciteurs^ whose
number has been reckoned at 60,000 in the city of Paris alone.
Let us put into this category the ythole personnel of elections.

/

Of the Vices of Civilisation 93

Prisoners form a class in enforced idleness ; the sick still more
so. We shall not see among native harmonians one-tenth of the
sick that we see in civilisation. For, although sickness is an
inevitable vice, it is susceptible of correction and of enormous
reduction. Out of ten sick people nine are unseasonably with- -1
drawn from labour, as a consequence of the civilised régime;
nine who in the associative state would be in good health, — no
offence meant to the physicians.

12° The SECEDERS, people in open rebellion against industry,
the laws, morals, and usages. Such are lotteries^ gambling-
houses, veritable social poisons, sharpers, prostitutes, vagrants,
beggars, pickpockets, brigands, and other seceders, whose
number tends less than ever to decrease, and whose suppression
obliges the maintenance of a gendarmery and of functionaries
equally unproductive.

Pivotal Classes.

The agents of positive destruction; those that organise '^
famine and the plague, or contribute to war. The civilised order
accords its high protection to the agents of famine and pestilence ;
it cherishes stock-jobbers and Turks \ it encourages every species
of invention which may extend the ravages of war, Congreve
fusees, Lamberti cannon, etc.^

Agents of negative creation. I have already proved that
they are exceedingly numerous; that the greater part of work
done, such as walls of enclosure, are relatively unproductive;
others are illusory, through misconception or lack of skill ; such
as edifices which fall to pieces, bridges and roads which have to
be displaced or rebuilt. Others are an indirect injury : a hundred
labourers appear to be accomplishing a useful work by clearing a
forest ; they are preparing the ruin of the country, and are more

' Note, — The military figures in this table in two lines ; here, as carrying
on war, efifecting destruction, and in No. 4, as limited to stagnation, to an
unproductive rôle. It is not a double enumeration, but a difference of rôle^ a
doable character, which requires two distinct notices.

94 Selections from the Works of Fourier

fatal to it than the ravages of war, which may be repaired. Others
are scourges by counter-stroke, lauded by economism, such as
the invention of a method which will reduce to beggary a thousand
labourers, whose inaction will be a source of disorders. — (U. U.,

iii-» 173-179-)

A good reply to the boastings of civilised perfectibility is a

picture of the miseries which philosophy has actually created in
the course of a single generation. All those of which you are
about to read a long list date back less than forty years : ^
C/ 1° Progress of financiering, systems of extortion, indirect bank-
ruptcy, anticipations of revenue, art of devouring the future.
Necker did not know in 1788 where to raise 50 millions to
cover the annual deficit, but since the science which did not
EXIST UNDER Necker HAS BEEN CREATED, a way has been found
to increase not by 50 but by 500 million the annual taxes, which
in 1 788 did not amount to half a milliard ;

2° Progress of the mercantile spirit : consideration accorded to
commercial plundering and knavery. Stock-jobbing raised to a
power which scoffs at law, encroaches upon all the fruits of
industry, shares in the authority of governments, and propagates
everywhere the frenzy of gambling in the public funds ;

3° Concentration, Capital, transformed into vortexes which
absorb all resources, attract all the people of wealth, and cause
agriculture to be more and more disdained ;

4° Maritime Monopoly, It was contested and restrained in
1788 ; now it is exclusive master, with no chance for the Europeans
to re-establish rival navies ;

5° Heredity of evil, or custom of adopting vices which have
been introduced. Let the Directory establish a scandalous usage,
the farming out of public gambling ; its successors will declaim
against it, and will maintain the vice. The same is the case in
small things and great, from the monopoly of gambling to
conscription. The civilised state does indeed make progress,
but it is in the art of legalising and accumulating all sorts of
disorder ;

1 Written in 1823.— Ch. G.

Of the Vices of Civilisation 95

6® Attacks upon property, degenerating into a habit under
pretexts of revolution, pretexts which become rules for succeeding
parties ;

70 Overthrow of intermediary bodies, provincial Estates,
parliaments and corporations, which imposed limits upon the
central power. It is thanks to their overthrow that means have
been found for an annual supply of five hundred millions, where
Necker was unable to draw fifty ;

8*^ Spoliation of communes : among other political evils, it has
produced that of octrois, a true means of alienating the people of
cities and rendering them docile followers of agitators ;

9° Instahility of institutions, smitten by reason of this with
impotence, even where they are wise, thwarted by revolutionary
habits which are secretly kept up among people worn out by the
excess of taxation ;

10° Deep-rooted discords; local hatred and leavens of dissension,
improperly stifled by systems of simple action which suppress the
evil instead of absorbing it ;

11° Destructive or accelerating tactics which quadruple the
ravages of war, cause the revival of barbarous usages, vendettas,
guerillas, levies en masse; drag everybody, down to women and
children, into war.

1 2^ Immorality of politics, the union of Christianity with the
Ottomans against a Christian nation which wishes to escape
massacre ; a passive concert for the maintenance of pirates and
for traffic in negroes, which could be stopped at once by vigorously
punishing the well-known guilty parties; the shamelessness of
commerce, constructing vessels for the Algerians, which will serve
to stock their bagnios with Christian slaves.

— Direct depravity of the sciences : obstinate refusal to
explore neglected fields of research; contempt of experience,
which shows the sophists the nine scourges as the abiding fruit of
their systems; jugglery of making believe that everything has
been discovered, that those who offer inventions should be scoffed
at ; mercantile spirit of the learned world, reducing the arts and
r sciences to a commercial and intriguing gaming-house, crushing

I

96 Selections from the Works oj Fourier

everybody who does not enjoy the favour of the philosophical
coteries,

— Indirect depravity of the sciences ; among other things,
through progress in chemistry, the achievements of which only
serve to plague the poor by furnishing commerce with the means
of debasing all commodities : potato bread, wine of Indian wood,
sham vinegar, sham oil, sham coffees, sham sugar, sham indigo ;
everything in provisions and manufactures is but a travesty, and it
is the poor man who suffers by this chemical cheapening: he
alone is the victim of all these mercantile inventions, which could
be made to serve useful ends in a régime of genuine relations, but
which will grow more and more harmful until the close of
civilisation.

— Liberal rétrogradation, or concurrence of liberal pre-
judices, inciting to monstrous actions, such as the admission of the
Jews to the rights of citizens ; an act doubly impolitic in that it
grafts the third period (the patriarchal) upon the fifth, and that it
introduces into it parasites, unproductives, all devoted to traffic
and not at all to agriculture ; people whom an enlightened policy
would have excluded as a social contagion. This is quite a new
theme, and one to which I should like to be able to devote some
pages. -^

1 It did not suffice, then, to have the civilised in order to assure the reign of
knavery ; a nation of usurers, unproductive patriarchs must be called to aid.
The Jewish nation is not civilised, it is patriarchal, having no ruler, secretly
not recognising any, and believing all knavery praiseworthy when it concerns
deceiving those who do not practise its religion. It does not proclaim its
principles, but they are well enough known.

A graver wrong in this nation is that it devotes itself exclusively to traffic,
to usury, and to mercantile depravity, according to the London table, a table
which tells us only what every one knows.

Every government having regard to good morals ought to repress the Jews,
compel them to engage in productive labour, admit them only in the pro-
portion of one to a hundred : one mercantile family to a hundred agricultural
and manufacturing families ; but our philosophic age heedlessly admits legions
of Jews, all parasites, merchants, usurers, etc.

When it shall have been recognised (and it will be before long) that a sound
policy ought to aim at reducing the number of merchants, in order to lead
them to a competition characterised by honesty and solidarity, it will be hard
to conceive of the impotence of a philosophy which calls to its aid a race totally
unproductive, mercantile, and patriarchal, in order to reûne upon commercial
frauds, already intolerable. — (N. M., 421.)

[It will be observed that anti-Semitism does not date from to-day I — Ql G.]

Of the Vices of Civilisation 97

— Illiberal rétrogradation or spirit of immobility which has
seized the courts and the great, very liberal in 1 788, frightened now
by the pretended advance, and the evident evils to which it gives
rise : they look with suspicion upon the spirit of social progress,
instead of suspecting the false path it has struck, and of deciding
to seek the road to improvement outside of philosophic methods. —
(U. U., L, 167-170.)

G

CHAPTER VII

OF COMMERCE

Commerce at its origin was despised and ignored by the philo-
sophers, who even to-day comprehend it so little that they con-
found it with the useful class of manufacturers. Commerce did
not win the homage of the learned until it was in full triumph,
just like the farmers of revenue, whom no one thinks of making
much of until they appear in their coach-and-six ; then the orators
extol their virtues and devour their fine meals. It is thus that
philosophy has behaved in regard to the commercial spirit ; it did
not cajole it until it had reached the pinnacle ; before that it did
not deem it even worthy of attention. Spain, Portugal, Holland,
and England exercised a commercial monopoly for a long time,
and philosophy thought neither of praising nor blaming it. Holland
succeeded in amassing its immense fortune without seeking any
enlightenment from the economists ; their sect was not yet born
when the Dutch were already accumulating tons of gold. The
philosophers of that time were wholly occupied in diving into
beautiful Antiquity, or in " meddling " in religious quarrels.

Finally they perceived that this new policy of commerce and
monopoly might furnish matter to fill large volumes and bring a
new coterie into repute ; it was then that philosophy was seen to
give birth to sects of economists, who, notwithstanding their
recent origin, have already duly piled up volumes upon volumes,
and promise to equal the tomes of their predecessors. — (Q. M.,

337)

Nature is never deceptive in the general impulses which it

bestows upon mankind. If the great majority of nations disdain

a calling such as commerce, if this disdain is dictated to them by

Of Commerce 99

natural instinct, be sure that the object of their contempt contains
some odious and hidden property.

Which of the two are the most sensible, the moderns who
honour commerce or the ancients who consigned merchants to
contempt ? Vendentes et latrones^ says the Scripture, which puts
these two classes together. Thus thought Jesus Christ, who
armed himself with scourges to drive out the merchants, and said
to them with evangelical frankness : You have made my house a
den of thieves.

" Fecistis earn speluncam latronum."

In accord with Jesus Christ, beautiful Antiquity confounded
merchants and thieves, whom she placed pell-mell under the
patronage of Mercury. It seems that at that period the mer-
cantile calling bordered close upon infamy, for Saint-Chrysostom
declares that a merchant cannot be agreeable to God ; accord-
ingly, merchants are excluded from the Kingdom of Heaven,
although the elect of all other vocations are admitted, even
an attorney, in the instance of Saint-lyes.

I cite these particulars in order to establish the opinion of the
Ancients, which I wish to place in comparison with that of the
moderns. I am far from approving this exaggeration of the
Ancients \ it was as ridiculous to proscribe and scoff at merchants
as it is ridiculous to exalt them to the skies. But which of the
two excesses is the less absurd ? I declare in ' favour of the
Ancients.^ — (Q. M., 337-392.)

The mechanism of commerce is organised in opposition to
common sense. It subordinates the social body to a class of
parasitic and unproductive agents, the merchants. All the
essential classes, the proprietor, the cultivator, the manufacturer,

1 There have been cited as exceptions some small nations of antiquity that
devoted themselves to commerce, such as Tyre and Athens. But these nations
had no territory : the famous republic of Athens was smaller than the smallest
of the eighty-seven provinces of France. Nations without territory like Athens,
or restricted to an ungrateful soil like Holland, constitute an exception to the
general rule : they engage zealously in parasite industry ; they become corsairs,
manu&cturers, monopolists, traders. They can readily excuse the mercantile
calling which is their sole resource, and to aid which they drained the countries
of the producers. — (U.U., ii., 201.)

1

lOO Selections from the Works of Fourier

and even the government, find themselves dominated by
an accessory class, that of the merchant, which ought to be
their inferior, their commissioned agent, removable and responsible,
and which nevertheless directs and obstructs at its pleasure all
the forces of circulation. — (Q. M., 332.)

Commerce is the natural enemy of factories ; while feigning
a solicitude to support them, it really labours only to levy
contributions upon them. In the majority of manufacturing cities,
accordingly, it is recognised that the small, not very prosperous,
manufacturer works only for the dealer in materials; just as it
often happens that the small cultivator works only for the usurer,
and the little savant of the -attic for the great savant of the
Academy, who condescends to publish under his own name the
fruit of the vigils of a literary wage-worker.

In brief, the trader is an industrial corsair, living at the expense
of the manufacturer or produced. To confound these two
functions is to be ignorant of the alphabet of the science.^ —
(U. U., ii., 217.)

Commerce has a goal which has not been caught sight of by the
economists ; it tends to metamorphose civilisation into industrial
feudalism ; it tends to establish federative companies, like that of
the English Indies, which reduced to bondage the masses and
the small proprietors.

Free competition, then, has as its ulterior result mercantile
^ feudalism. This order is established by companies enjoying
special privileges, which, once organised, govern jointly with the
sovereign, share with him the profits of the monopoly, and reduce
to industrial slavery all outside of their body. They lay down the
^ law unobstructed, in the general market, by their vast capital.
Thenceforth every mediocre proprietor finds himself compelled to
submit to the rate of prices prescribed by them. . . . Such is the
outcome towards which the mercantile spirit of the noble science

1 Manufactures being, after agriculture, the principal source of wealth,
merchants and bankers being merely accessory agents, servants whose existence
depends upon an industry which they do not create, servants who can never
be lacking to the factories ; policy should favour the manufacturers and not
the traders.— (Manuscrits, p. 254.)

Of Commerce loi

of political economy tends. This established order is the last
phase of civilisation, which, in accordance with the law of the
meeting of extremes, must end as it began, by a feudalism
reproduced in the direction opposite to the first.

Without waiting for oppression to reach this point, experience
demonstrated to us that free competition has as its end, its visible
result, the encroachment upon mediocre fortunes by civilised
matadores. To-day, when competition carried to the highest
point prevails in France ; to-day, when the streets are lined with
merchants and bankers ... we see them hatching plots every
day, to cause a rise in some sort of commodity, and gorging
themselves with gold, at the expense of general industry, whose
various branches they convulse by turns, — all, the effect of free
competition.

The servitude of governments goes on increasing, and the
ascendancy of stock-jobbers has reached such a point that the
gambling of the Exchange has become the guide of opinion. Do
the public funds fall, the common people look upon it as an
irrefutable thermometer, and every pigmy draws the conclusion
that the ministry is acting amiss. This decline is frequently a
result of the intrigues of jobbers more powerful than the minister.
What ministry can wrestle with coalitions of stock-jobbers, among
whom we see a single individual making 80 millions in one year
for himself?

As soon as a cabal can set this spring of political disturbance
in motion, this factitious fall of the public funds, opinion in
concert throws discredit upon the doings of the cabinet. No
more is required to l^ad to the unseasonable downfall of a
ministry, and often the fate of an empire is compromised by the
intrigues of the jobbers of the Exchange. Has servitude been 7
ever better demonstrated ? ^

This state of things ought to fasten the attention of science : it
is clear that civilisation has assumed a new aspect, that monopoly !
and stock-jobbing, which are two commercial characteristics, have
overthrown the old order. Is this a cause for triumph or for ;
alarm? What issue does this monstrous irruption of the mercantile

\

i

I02 Selections from the Works of Fourier

'power y whose encroachments go on increasing ^ presage f — (U. U., ii.,

205.)

The first thing that men should have noted who seek for truth
is that it is banished from commerce.

Another important observation that the aspect of commerce
should suggest is that it offers germs of association of various
sorts.

Political thought should have based two kinds of speculation
upon the commercial mechanism : the one, positive, which should
have consisted in developing in it the germs of Association,
source of all economy, and in striving subsequently to introduce
this into agriculture : the other, negative, which should have
tended to banish from the mechanism of commerce that decep-
tion which we find there generally prevalent, and which is the
strongest bar to activity of intercourse.

The two problems were allied and were soluble by each other's
aid ; for guarantees of truth cannot be introduced into commerce
without the help of Association, and the social bond cannot be
widened without discovering the guarantees of truth. — (U. U., ii.,
199.)

One would have auguted a reform of this sink of corruption, of
this inept mechanism, which, by the concurrence of sixty malevo-
lent characteristics, makes industry a trap for the nations, and
aggravates at once their wretchedness and their depravity. It is
maintained that people are not more deceitful than they were
formerly ; nevertheless one could, half a century ago, obtain at a
reasonable rate goods of a durable colour, and natural foods;
to-day, adulteration, knavery prevail everywhere. The cultivator
has become as great a defrauder as the merchant used to be.
Dairy products, oils, wines, brandy, sugar, coffee, flour, everything
is shamelessly debased. The masses can no longer procure
natural foods; only slow poisons are sold them, such progress
has the spirit of commerce made even in the smallest villages. —

(N. M.,43.)

Forestalling is the most odious of commercial crimes, in that it

always attacks the suffering part of industry. If there is a scarcity

Of Cofnmerce 103

of provisions or any other commodities, the monopolists are on
the watch to aggravate the evil, to seize upon the existing supplies,
to give earnest-money to secure those that are expected, to
divert thera from circulation, to double, treble the price by under-
hand dealings which exaggerate the scarcity and diffuse a fea-
which is recognised too late as illusory. They produce the effect
in the industrial world of a body of butchers who should go upon
the field of battle to aggravate and tear open the wounds of the
suffering.

One circumstance that has contributed to the favour which
monopolists enjoy to-day, is that they were persecuted by the
Jacobins ; they emerged from that conflict more triumphant than
ever, and he who should raise his voice against them would at
first seem an echo of Jacobinism. But do we not know that the
Jacobins slaughtered indiscriminately all sorts of classes, whether
they were honest men or robbers ? did they not send to the same
scaffold Hébert and Malesherbes, Chaumette and Lavoisier?
And because these four men were sacrificed by the same faction,
does it follow that we must assimilate them, and will it be said
that Hébert and Chaumette were good men because they were,
like Malesherbes and Lavoisier, immolated by the Jacobins?
The same reasoning applies to monopolists and stock-jobbers,
who, though they were persecuted by the enemies of order, are
none the less disorganisers and vultures unchained against honest
industry.

They have, nevertheless, found extollers among that class of
scholars who are called ecoriomists, and nothing is, to-day, more
respected than monopolism and stock-jobbing, which, in the style
of the day, are termed speculation and hanking, because it is not )
proper to call things by their names. r^

One very curious consequence of the civilised order is the\
fact that if classes evidently mischievous, such as that of the
monopolists, are repressed directly, the evil becomes still greater, /
commodities become scarcer, and this was convincingly shown under \
the reign of terror. It is this that has caused philosophers to I
conclude that merchants must he left alone — '^Laisser faire les j

.V

I

104 Selections from the Works of Fourier

marchands.^* Comical remedy for an evil, to maintain it because
no antidote is known ! It should have been sought for, and,
until it was discovered, their underhand dealings condemned
instead of lauded : encouragement should have been held out for
the quest of a method capable of repressing them (associative
competition). — (Q. M., 354)

The fault of which I am about to speak is not scandalous like
the preceding one, but it is not less injurious.

In an age in which economy has been carried into the most
minute details, such as replacing coffee by chicory juice, sugar by
the juice of the beet-root, and other means of saving which serve
only to promote the trickery of merchants, to provoke travellers,
who are unable to procure good things at any price — in an age so
parsimonious, I say, how is it that it has not been perceived
that the chief economy ought to consist in the economic of hands
of superfluous agents that could be spared, and that we waste
upon unproductive functions, such as those of commerce ?

I have observed that in our practice a hundred men are
frequently employed in a piece of work which would require
barely two or three if association prevailed ; twenty men would
" suffice to supply the market of a city where, to-day, we find a
thousand peasants repairing. We are, as far as regards tbe
industrial mechanism, as raw as a people who should ignore tie
use of mills, and employ fifty labourers to grind grain which 6
to-day crushed by a single millstone. The superfluity of agent»
is frightful everywhere, and generally amounts to four times what
is necessary in all commercial employments.

Since philosophy inculcates the love of traffic, merchants are
found swarming even in the villages. The heads of families
renounce the cultivation of the soil, to devote themselves to
itinerant brokerage ; if they have but a calf to sell, they will lose
days in loitering about in the market-places and taverns. It is
particularly in wine-growing countries that this abuse is seen
to prevail ; everywhere, free competition raises the number of
merchants and commercial agents to infinitude. In large cities
like Paris it is reckoned that there are as many as a thousand

Of Commerce 105

grocers, while scarcely three hundred would be required to serve
adequately the usual needs. The profusion of agents is the same
in the small market-towns j a little town, which to-day receives a
hundred commercial travellers and a hundred pedlars in the
course of a year, saw, perhaps, less than ten in 1788, and yet
there was no lack of either provisions or clothing, at very
moderate prices, although the merchants amounted to less than
a third of the present number.

This multiplicity of rivals causes them to engage, in emulation
of each other, in the maddest enterprises, and such as are most
ruinous to the social body ; for every superfluous agent, such as
the monks were, for instance, is a despoiler of society, wherein
he consumes without producing anything. Is it not recognised
that the monks of Spain, whose number is reckoned as high as
500,000, would produce the sustenance of two million persons, 1
if they returned to agriculture? The same is the case with
superfluous traders, whose number is incalculable ; and when you
shall understand the commercial method of the sixth period,
(Miodative competition, you will be convinced that commerce
could be carried on with one quarter of the agents it employs
to-day, and that there are in France alone a million inhabitants ^
abstracted-fcoxi Kagricultura . by the abundance of agents created
by free competition. There is, then, for France alone, an annual
loss of the sustenance of four millions of inhabitants, consequent
upon an error of the economists. _ .

Besides the waste of hands, the present order causes further-
more a waste of capital and commodities. I cite as an example
one of the commonest abuses of to-day, the crushing out of
competitors {I* Écrasement). ^

Grown too numerous, the merchants contend desperately for
sales which become more difficult every day on account of the
abundance of competitors. A city which consumed a thousand
tons of sugar when it had ten merchants will continue to consume
only a thousand tons when the number of merchants shall have
increased to forty instead of ten ; that is what has taken place in
all the cities of France. Now we hear this swarm of merchants

io6 Selections from the Works of Fourier

complain of the dulness of trade, when they should be com-
plaining of the superabundance of merchants ; they ruin themselves
by outlays incurred to entice custom, and to overpass rivals ; they
venture upon the maddest sorts of expenditure for the pleasure of
crushing out their rivals. It is a mistake to believe that the
merchant is dominated by his interest alone : he is in great part
a slave of his jealousy and his pride ; some ruin themselves for
the barren honour of devising great enterprises, others, for the
mania of annihilating a neighbour whose success exasperates them.
Mercantile ambition, obscure though it be, is none the less intense,
and if the trophies of Miltiades disturbed the slumbers of
Themistocles, one may also say that the sales of a shopkeeper
disturb the slumbers of his shopkeeping neighbour. That is the
origin of that frenzy of competition which drives so many
merchants to their ruin, and causes them to waste their substance
in expenditures which ultimately fall back upon the consumer \
for the social body is in the last instance the sufiferer by any form
of waste. We had a striking proof of this in the war waged by
the stage-coach companies, which, in order to injure each other,
would willingly have carried their passengers gratis. Seeing them
lower their rates so as to crush each other, people would remark :
They will soon pay us a premium to carry us post. It is important
to emphasise these details in order to prove that the economists
are grossly mistaken in supposing that interest is the sole motive
of the trader. What sensible man could in cold blood have con-
ceived the idea of carrying passengers post from Paris to Rennes
for tenpence ? Such are the follies produced by the mania of
annihilation. The result of these onsets, amusing to the travellers,
was the bankruptcy of the various champions, who were annihil-
ated by each other in the space of a few months. Their bank-
ruptcy was borne by the public, which is always interested in the
wildest enterprises ; and, despite the failure of such undertakings,
the bankrupt is the gainer by despoiling those associated with him,
whom he does not reimburse for their investments. That is why
merchants, confident of saving themselves by bankruptcy in case
of reverses, risk everything to ruin a rival and enjoy a neighbour's

Of Commerce 107

misfortune ; they resemble those Japanese who put out one of
their own eyes in front of an enemy's door in order to have the
law put out both of his. — (Q. M., 373-377.)

Commerce, notwithstanding all these evils, is regarded as a
perfect method of exchange, because the contracting parties are
free to come to terms or to decline to do so.

This freedom is only a negative bond. It is of no value except
by comparison with the methods of 'barbarians, with requisitions,
maximums, tariffs, etc. ; the freedom enjoyed in commerce is far
from sufficient in itself to secure in exchanges equity, fidelity,
confidence, economy, and other desirable bonds which are incom-
patible with the commercial order. This order secures all the
opposite vices ; it causes the triumph of plunder and roguery ; it
disseminates a general mistrust which diminishes intercourse and
necessitates expensive precautions; finally, it causes the whole
course of exchange to be slow and complicated. — (Man., 248.)

The merchants are free to-day, but the social biody is not so in
its relations with them ; for we are compelled to make purchases ;
we cannot do without food and raiment, which can only be
obtained by purchase ; we are therefore in reality subjected to the
vendors, whose knavery we are enforced to endure.

Such a mechanism is only simple and not reciprocal liberty ; the
liberty is entirely on the side of the vendors, of whom the con-
sumer is the dupe, and against whom he has no guarantee. Such
a guarantee ought to be discovered and introduced, in order to
raise the commercial regime to composite or reciprocal liberty. —
(U. U., ii., 195.)

The fundamental principle of the systems of commerce, the
pnnciple : Allow perfect Uherty to the merchants^ concedes to them
absolute ownership of the commodities in which they deal ; they
have a right to withdraw them from circulation, to hide, and even
to burn them, as has more than once been done by the Oriental
Company of Amsterdam, which publicly burned stores of cinna-
mon in order to raise the price of that article. What it did in the
case of cinnamon, it would have done in the case of wheat, had it
not been afraid of being stoned by. the people; it would have

io8 Selections from the Works of Fourier

burned a part of the wheat or allowed it to rot, so as to sell the
remainder at quadruple its value. What ! Do we not see every
day at the docks stores of grain, which have become rotten because
the merchant waited too long for a rise, thrown into the sea ? I
myself have superintended, in the capacity of clerk, such infamous
operations, and one day I ordered twenty thousand quintals of
rice to be thrown into the sea, which could have been sold at an
honest profit before they were spoiled, had the holder been less
ieager for gain. It is the social body that suffers the loss of such
waste, which we find occurring anew every day, under the shelter
of the principle: Let the merchants alone, {^^ Laissez faire les
marchandsJ^)

And if you consider that the company, according to the rules
of commercial freedom, has the right of refusing to sell at any
price, of allowing the wheat to rot in its granaries, while the
people are perishing, can you believe that the starving nation is
in conscience bound to die of hunger for the honour of the fine
philosophic principle. Let the merchants alone ? No, surely not ;
admit, then, that the right of commercial freedom ought to be
subject to restrictions corresponding to the needs of the social
body ; that a person provided with a superabundance of a com-
modity of which he is neither the producer nor the consumer,
ought to be regarded as a conditional trustee, and not as an
absolute owner. Admit that merchants or intermediaries of
exchange ought to be subordinated in their dealings to the good
of the masses, and not be at liberty to clog general intercourse by
all those most disastrous manœuvres which are admired by your
economists. — (Q. M., 357-359.)

CHAPTER VIII

OF AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION

We boast of our advances in agriculture ; they are held up to ad-
miration, being compared with the incapacity of the barbarians ;
are we, then, on the road to perfection because we are a little less
stupid than an ignorant neighbour? If we could behold the
productions of the Harmonians at the end of half a century — the
length of time necessary to restore the forests, which cannot, like
cabbage, be raised in a season — we should be greatly astonished
to discover that civilisation, with its jargon of perfectibility, is
wholly savage, in various branches of industry, for instance grazing;
and that in other branches of great importance, notably water and
forests, we fall far below the savages. For we do not, like them,
confine ourselves to leaving them uncultivated and in their
primitive state; we bring the axe and destruction, and the
result is landslides, the denuding of mountain-sides, and the
deterioration of the climate.

This evil, by destroying the springs and multiplying storms, is
in two ways the cause of disorder in the water system. Our
rivers, constantly alternating from one extreme to the other, from
sudden swellings to protracted droughts, are able to support only
a very small quantity of fish, which people take care to destroy
at their birth, reducing their number to a tenth of that which
they ought to produce. Thus, we are complete savages in the
management of water and forests.

How our descendants will curse civilisation, on seeing so many
mountains despoiled and laid bare, like those in the South of
France ! ^ — (U. U., iii., 478.) -•

* This society, so vaunted, does not raise its atmosphere to half its possible

no Selections from the Works of Fourier

We are carried away by the poet's pictures of rural pleasures,
and are blind to the miseries of civilised agriculture ; Delille,

purity. Italy is fiill of moors and swamps ; its ridges of the Apennines are
exhausted, laid waste, from Genoa to Calabria. France is in a still more dis-
ordered state ; the destruction of its forests causes a visible deterioration of
climatic condition ; it banishes the orange from Provence ; it is rapidly driving
out the olive, and will soon drive out the vine.

It is not thus that the associative order carries on cultivation ; it distributes
a universality of cultivation as if the entire globe belonged to one company of
shareholders ; it raises every canton, every province, every region to a state of
combined perfection ; it undertakes all the general operations of re-planting
forests, irrigation, and drainage ; all kinds of works which tend to render the
atmosphere, whether local or general, wholesome, milder, and purer.

In this condition of things, the various regions, instead of communicating to
each other the germs of storms, exchange only the germs of gentle breezes,
waters and forests wisely distributed prevent the excesses at once of heat and of
cold ; and the general mildening of the temperature is the outcome of this
universal perfection of cultivation. The atmosphere becomes, in that case,
refined to the integral composite degree, termed supercomposite ^ which requires
two springs of perfection : that oî general cultivation zxia. judicious distribution
of cultivations.

The triple harvest can result only from this composite integral refinement or
spreading over all parts of the earth ; and in that case, the advantage of
thirty degrees will be general throughout all the continents ; twenty at the two
Arctic poles, the frozen region at the north being reduced to one-fourth, that
at the south diminished only by half.

Then, a vessel leaving Europe will make a tour of the two passes in eighteen
months ; it will skirt the coast of Siberia during the first summer ; it wUl
winter in Behring Strait, taking on the commodities deposited by the fleets of
Mexico and of China. The following spring it will pass through Parry Strait
and Baffin's Bay, and will return to London at the end of eighteen months
employed in the great coasting-trade of Siberia and Arctic America.

Will this perspective be accused of exaggeration? It ceases to arouse
suspicion if we start out from a veritable fact, the influence of huipan cultivation
upon atmosphere and climatic conditions. We cannot too often repeat, and
we should, like Harpagon, have it graved in letters of gold, that the air is a
field subjecty as well as the earthy to itidustrial exploitation.

This amelioration is not one of those that may be promised to take place all
of a sudden, since it presupposes the complete cultivation of the globe and a
full supply of population. But if not suddenly, it will be enjoyed gradually
and rapidly ; a hundred and twenty to a hundred and thirty years will suffice
to consummate this precious metamorphosis. Each generation will see a very
sensible bettering of its climatic conditions, thanks to the power which
Association possesses of again covering the mountains with trees, judiciously
distributing waters and forests, ponds for irrigation, and all branches of
cultivation. — (U. U., ii., 94-97.)

Whenithe human race shall have exploited the globe up to beyond the 60th
degree of north latitude the temperature of the planet will be considerably
milder and more regular ; the reproductive instinct will acquire greater activity ;
the aurora borealis, becoming very frequent, will settle upon the pole and
spread out in the form of a ring or crown. The fluid, which to-day is only
luminous, will acquire a new property, that of distributing heat along with
light— (Q. M., 62.)

Of Agricultural Production m

availing himself liberally of the poets' prerogative of lying, assures
us that the fields are a dwelling-place of ineffable delights, which
we know not how to relish ; that is the expression he uses :

" Mais peu savent goûter leurs voluptés touchantes ;
Pour les bien savourer c'est trop peu que des sens."

What, then, does he see so touching in the pleasure of a troop
of labourers, who, exposed to the sun of the dog-days, suffer the
pangs of hunger and thirst ; who, at midday, sorrily eat a crust of
black bread with a glass of water, each one going off by himself,
because he who has a piece of rancid bacon does not wish to
share it with his neighbours ? What is there to relish in the sight
of the privations of these poor people ? It requires Delille's name
to allow such a pastoral harlequinade to pags ; and to cause the
touching pleasures, which he himself recognises are but little
flattering to the senses, to be relished.

They are no less insipid for the soul ; in truth, three hundred
families of a village, cultivating three hundred cabbage-patches,
will find no stimulus in their labour to friendship, love, ambition,
nor to the distributive passions, the tenth, eleventh, twelfth.

No COMPOSITE intrigue. In their puny, confined garden there-^
is no charm for either the spirit or the senses. The labourer is
impelled only by the sad spur of escaping famine, and providing
himself with some poor cabbages, so as to sustain his famishing
wife and children ; save that at night he has to watch his neigh-J^
hours who will try to steal his cabbages. All these calculations
are far removed from the enthusiasm demanded by the twelfth
passion.

No CABALIST intrigue ; for while raising his poor cabbages, the ^
"peasant" gives no thought to rivalries in perfection, to the 1
choice of species, to combinations with co-operators. His sole
object is to fill his poor philosophic pot, saying of the most
detestable cabbages : Would to God we were always supplied
with them !

No PAPILLONNE intrigue ; for, while eating his pitiful mess of -
cabbages, made pretty dry by lack of watering, he can have no
recourse to variety/ of species, nor relish a hundred different sorts

112 Selections from the Works of Fourier

of cabbage, in the course of a year, either from his own district or
from those in his vicinity ; varieties which would daily be an
added bait to cultivators.

I have sufficiently demonstrated that in our civilised agriculture
and manufactures, and in our rural life, everything deviates from
the good and the beautiful, which have, thus far, been relegated
to poetic efifusions. And even the poets in their very fancies are
in contradiction with associative nature ; they picture Daphnis
and Chloe alongside of their tender lambs, holding crooks in their
hands. Nothing in these scenes is in accordance with Nature, for,
in Harmony, the shepherds and shepherdesses, leading an immense
flock, are mounted upon beautiful horses and surrounded by a
dozen dogs that see to it that the sheep move according to orders.
The flocks, in Harmony, are always very large, their shepherds are
relieved every two hours, like our sentinels, and are grouped in
twos or in fours, on horseback. While in this position, they have
neither crooks nor pink ribbons, nor any of those inane customs
lent them by the poetry of civilisation. In these fancies, as in all
the others, it has no more idea of the beautiful in husbandry
than economism has of the good.

Everything concentrated or everything scattered^ — that is the
husbandry of civilisation: it seems to take its attorneys as its
models, who, when they write by space, sometimes make their
letters an inch long, and, the moment after, scrawl, when the
work itself and not the number of pages is paid for. This two-
fold excess is inseparable from the subversive state. — (U. U., iii.,
499-501.)

The entire alimentary system of the civilised generally revolves
about a single food product : wheat in Europe, rice in Asia, maize
in Mexico, manioc in the Antilles.

That is the ne plus ultra of our policy, always simplist in its
designs. Accordingly, we are sure of having a famine should the
wheat crop not prove successful in France or Italy, or the rice
crop in Hindustan or China.

Society, having started in the temperate zone, had to fix upon
commodities which it produces. But when all the zones shall be

Of Agricultural Production 113

cultivated, when we shall be able to calculate upon various edibles
equally abundant and easy to raise in the three zones, when culti-
vation shall encounter no material obstacles through wars, duties,
and prohibitions, or political obstacles through commercial
knavery, will it be proper to make grain foods the sustaining basis
of the masses ? No : Harmony, which operates only by the com-
posite principle, will create a ** system of sustenance " for itself
which will combine the productions of various zones.

It will make little use of bread, for three reasons :

1° Bread, a food troublesome to produce, has but little attrac-
tion for the people, who, in all countries, prefer meat and other
edibles ; and, on the other hand, grain is much liked by poultry
and other animals, which would be raised in immense numbers.

2° Bread is weak in industrial attraction ; all the labour con-
nected with the production and handling of bread, such as
ploughing, reaping, threshing, kneading, etc., are so little attractive
that it will be necessary to add attraction by means of parochial
bands, or armies of the first degree.

3° Bread, a nutriment little grateful to the taste, is, of necessity,
a daily production. It will be an expensive article in Harmony,
where each series will have to be allowed a compensation great in
proportion as its industrial privileges are small and its labours
frequent.

What edibles ought to have the preference over bread and form
the chief resource of nations ? It is attraction that will indicate
it to us; let us consult that of different ages, and first that of
children.

If we offer them the following three articles, a pound of bread,
a pound of fruit, a pound of sugar, their choice will not be doubt-
ful : they will contend for the sugar and the fruit, and disdain the
bread. AVhat are the eatables that the child desires? In the
simple régime he likes fruit and milk foods ; and in the composite
régime he likes these articles mixed with sugar : sweetmeats,
sugared creams, and even eatables containing one-fourth of sugar,
called compotes and marmalades.

Such is the diet indicated by attraction for children. And why

H

1

114 Selections from the Works of Fourier

does Nature inspire them with this taste? It does so because it is
expedient that man should be nourished in a bi-composite manner,
combining the products of his zone and other zones, selecting
those whose preparation involves little expenditure. Now, it will
be seen in the special chapters, that the articles of food cited
above, the compotes and marmalades, the gingerbreads and
sugared creams, and, finally, the nutriment containing one-
forth sugar, will, in Harmony, cost much less than bread. They
will, besides, have the advantage of uniting the zones, and causing
them to co-operate in the general alimentation. This method,
which would be an expensive one in civilisation, is an economical
one in harmony, and necessary to the general union.

Moreover, when the entire globe shall be regularly exploited,
how will the enormous quantity of sugar which the torrid zone
will produce be consumed, unless it be used in the popular
articles of food of the temperate and cool zones (I do not say
frigid, because they will be only cool after the climatic restora-
tion) ? It will be expedient then to promote the consumption of
sugar, considering the facility of preserving that commodity, and
the economy attaching to sugared products, some of which, such
as fine confections, may be prepared a year in advance ; while
the labour of making bread is renewed every day, or every two or
three days, according to its quality. There is no kind oi good
bread that can last as long as four days. That of our peasants
sometimes lasts a fortnight ; but the Harmonians will not eat such
wretched stuff, good enough for the civilised.

In short, neither children nor adults have any great liking for
bread ; and as it will be more expensive than vegetables and the
commodities mentioned, it will become an article of slight impor-
tance in the alimentary system of Harmony, in conformity with
the desire of attraction, which is not for bread. Already the
Germans and the English consume but very little of it, scarce a
third of the amount eaten by the French. The variety and deli-
cacy of the potato, combined with the low price of wines, will
cause this vegetable, the preparing of which is so simple, to be
quite generally preferred.

Of Agricultural Production 115

Harmony will, consequently, tend to increase greatly its herds,
fowls, pasturage, orchards, gardens, and greatly reduce the vast
and gloomy fields of wheat which the country now presents to us
under civilisation.

As the abundance of animals will yield an enormous quantity
of manure. Harmony, while cultivating only two-thirds of the
ground sown with corn to-day, will reap more grain than civilisa-
tion does in double the quantity of land; for they will leave
uncultivated all mediocre land, where the civilised raise sorry-
looking cereals, such as those of Champagne and the environs of
Paris. Such poor soil will be devoted to other uses or filled up
with good earth, or joined to the forests, from which those
portions suitable for cultivation will be detached.

On the other hand, Harmony does not crowd into a small
stretch of territory those swarms of people that we see in China, in
Bengal, in Naples, and in Wurtemberg. Obliged to reserve
pastures, and, above all, forests, everywhere, in order to maintain /
the streams and equalise the temperature, it can, even upon the v
best land, allow only a limited number of inhabitants, never '^
exceeding 2,000 to the square league (20 leagues to a degree) and
usually numbering 1,500 on that area.^

During the first century it will employ its surplus population
of the various localities in peopling the colonies. After two
centuries there will be no surplus, for the human species multi-
plies very little as soon as Harmony attains its plenitude and the
race its full vigour.

In the beginning, France will be obliged, on account of lack of
territory, to pour four millions of its superfluous inhabitants beyond
its borders. — (U. U., iii., 567-569.)

The condition of things will, in the beginning of Harmony,
favour the planting of the virie in semi-torrid latitudes, where
spirituous wines, such as Cyprus, Madeira, Sherry, Port, Calabrian,

1 The square league (20 leagues to a degree) represents 30 square kilo-
metres. Fourier estimates, then, a density of population of 50 inhabitants
to a square kilometre, far less, therefore, than the density of the population of
France, which is even now not great enough, —about 70. — Ch. G. \,Sce the
chapter Dc la Population,)

Ii6 Selections from the Works of Fourier

Shiras, will be readily and abundantly obtained. They will serve
to cross and strengthen the flat wines of France, Germany,
Lombardy, and "others in regions of from 40 to 50 degrees of
latitude, which will be greatly improved by the climatic
restoration.

Ghicken-rainng is evidently the branch which all the world
will practise. It is in order to render this industry general
that God has made the chicken the most valuable, the most whole-
some of edibles, and the most generally preferred, whether for its
flesh, or its eggs and the numerous uses to which these are put. —
(U. U., iv., 341.)

Biver-fish : this edible is so much the more valuable in that it
requires no care and that its excessive increase is not, like that of
game, prejudicial to the crops. How great would the abundance
of fish be if there were an agreement as to an intermission in
fishing, and the quantity of fish to be left in every river ! such an
agreement is one of the properties of the associative régime, I
have heard trustworthy experts declare that twenty times as many
fish would be caught in ordinary years if an agreement could be
made to fish only at the proper times, the quantity to be regulated
by the requirements of reproduction, and if one-fourth of the time
expended upon ruining the rivers were devoted to hunting the
otter. It is thus that Association proceeds, adding to the product
of the rivers that of running ponds which serve to preserve and
fatten the various species.

Game : this is at once an ornament of the country, the wealth
of man, and the destroyer of mischievous insects. If it is neces-
sary to guard against the excessive multiplication of certain species,
it is likewise necessary to prevent their destruction. Cultivators
complain that the multitude of hunters is the cause of all crops
being covered with caterpillars, since they destroy the birds that
devour the grub. The hunter does not kill the sparrow, which
consumes a great deal of wheat, but he kills all the birds that eat
the insects and are an ornament of the country.

In speculating about an order of things in which agricultural
labour would become more attractive than the chase, which

Of Agricultural Production 117

consequently would be neglected, and pursued only as far as
necessity demands, we shall find the following results :

Negative benefit, or increase of game without any care, nine-
tenths and more.

Powttvc benefit, or destruction of insects. — (U. U., iii., 24-25.)

(

CHAPTER IX

OF MANUFACTURING PRODUCTION

The associative order looks upon manufactures only as the com-
plement of agriculture, a means of diversion in the passional calms
which will intervene during the long winter vacation and the equa-
torial rains. Accordingly, all the phalanxes of the globe will have
\ factories, but they will strive to bring the products manufactured
I to the highest degree of perfection, in order that their durability
I may reduce the labour of manufacture to a short space of
I time.

Let us formulate upon this subject a principle misunderstood
by all economists.

God distributed only such an allowance of attraction for the
work of manufacture as corresponds to a quarter of the time that
the associative man can devote to labour. The other three
• quarters are to be employed in the care of animals, plants, the
kitchen, industrial armies, in short, in all kinds of labour except
manufacturing, in which term I do not include the daily
[^ preparation of food, for that is domestic service.

If a phalanx desired to exceed the allowance of manufacturing
attraction, to carry on this species of work beyond a quarter of the
/ time allotted to industry, in fine, to give to manufacturers half
of the time at the disposal of non-domestic labour, manufacturing
attraction would be found to miscarry, and, as a consequence,
agricultural attraction as well ; for the agricultural series would
lose a third of their time for practice, and, consequently, a third
of their members : their density and activity would be found to
diminish in like proportion.

Thus the entire mechanism of industrial attraction would be

Of Manufacturing Production 119

perverted were they to act like the civilised, confusedly, and
without maintaining the proportion of the allowance of industry
to the special attractions distributed by Nature.

Moreover, this proportion would be distorted in all branches of
nianufacture, if, as to-day, articles were to be made of inferior
quality, a thing ruinous to the social body ; for imperfect
materials and dye-stuffs, by reducing the durability of a piece of
clothing to a half, a third, or a fourth of what it should be, would
compel a like increase in the quantity of manufactures, and
restrict in the same proportion the amount of time and of hands
which a population, limited to a certain fixed number, would
devote to agriculture.

It is in accordance with this principle that factories, instead of
being, as to-day, concentrated in cities where swarms of wretched
people are huddled together, will be scattered over all the fields
and phalanxes of the globe, in order that man, while applying
himself to factory labour, should never deviate from the paths of
attraction, which tends to make use of factories as accessories to
agriculture and a change from it, not as the chief occupation,
either for a district or for any of its individuals. — (N. M., 151, 153.)

PART THIRD

CHAPTER X

OF ASSOCIATION

It has been vaguely formulated as a principle that men are made
for SOCIETY : it has not been noted that society may be of two
orders, the scattered or disjointed (morcelé) and the combined, the
non-associative and the associative condition. The difference
between the one and the other is the difference between truth
and falsehood, between riches and poverty^/ between light and
darkness, between a comet and a planet, between a butterfly and
a caterpillar.

The present age, with its presentiments of association, has
pursued a hesitating advance ; it has been afraid to trust to its
inspirations which opened up hopes of a great discovery. It has
dreamed of social union without daring to undertake the investi-
gation of the means ; it has never thought of speculating upon
the following alternative :

There can be but two methods in the exercise of industry, namely :
the disjointed order or that of isolated families, such cw we see, or
the associative order.

God can choose for the prosecution of human labour only
between groups and individuals ; associative and combined
action, and incoherent and disjointed action.

As a wise dispenser, he could not have speculated upon the
employment of isolated couplesyworking without union, accord-

Of Association 121

ing to the civilised method : for individual action carries within I
itself seven germs of disorganisation, of which each one by itself,
would engender a multitude of disorders. We may judge by a
list of these evils whether God could for an instant have hesitated
to proscribe disjointed labour which engenders them all.

Evils of Individual Action in Industry.

Wage labour^ indirect servitude,

1° Death of the functionary.

2° Personal inconstancy.

3° Contrast between the characters of the father and son.

4° Absence of mechanical economy.

5° Fraud, theft, and general mistrust.

6° Intermission of industry on account of lack of means.

7° Conflict of contradictory enterprises.

^^^S^IP^^J^Î^JS^^^^î^^*^^^^^^ collectisit i nte r éê i .

Abse nce of unity in plans and execution,

God would have adopted all these evils as a basis of the social
system had he fixed upon the philosophic method or disjointed
labour ; can we suspect the Creator of such unreason ? Let us
devote a little space to the examination of each of these
characteristics, drawing parallels with the results of Association.

1° Death : it causes the cessation of a man's most useful enter-
prises, under circumstances in which no one about him has either
the intention to continue them or the necessary talents and
capital to do so.

* * The passionate Series never die : they replace every year
by new neophytes the members periodically withdrawn by death.

2^ Inconstancy : it takes possession of the individual, causes him
to neglect or change the order of things ] it is opposed to the
attainment of perfection and stability in the work.

** The Series is not subject to inconstancy; it could not
cause either an intermission or versatility in its labours. If it
carries off some members annually, other members enter and re-
establish the equilibrium, which is, moreover, maintained by an

122 Selections from the Works of Fourier

appeal to the veterans (anaen«), who constitute an auxiliary body
in cases of urgency.

3° Contrast between the character of father and «on, testator and
heir : a contrast which causes the one to abandon or pervert the
enterprises begun by the other.

** The Series are exempt from this evil because they are
formed by affinity of tastes, and not by ties of blood, which
constitute a guarantee of disparity of tastes.

4° The absence of mechanical economy, an advantage entirely
' denied to individual action : it requires large masses to render all
\ kinds of labour mechanical, whether pertaining to the household
or to cultivation.

** The Series, by the double medium of large masses and
associative competition, necessarily raise mechanism to the highest
^ degree.

5° Fraud and theft : evils inherent in every enterprise where the
. agents are not jointly interested in a distribution proportioned to
the three endowments of each one — capital, labour, intelli-
gence.

* * The serial mechanism, entirely safe from fraud and theft, is
exempted from the ruinous precautions which these two dangers
demand.

6^ The intermission of industry : lack of work, land, machinery,
implements, workshops, and other gaps which constantly paralyse
civilised industry.

* * These impediments are unknown in the associative régime,
which is always and abundantly provided with everything that is
necessary for the perfection and the continuity of labour.

7** Conflicting enterprises: civilised rivalries are malevolent, not
emulative; /à manufacturer strives to crush his competitor: the
workmen are the respective opposing legions.

* * Nothing of this unsocial spirit in the Series, each one of
which is interested in the success of the others, and which under-
take only such labour, whether in the field or in the factory, as is
guaranteed a market.

8** Opposition of the two kinds of interest, individual and

Of Association 123

collective, as in the destruction of forests, the game, fisheries, and
the debasement of climatic conditions.

* * Opposite effect of the Series : general agreement for the
maintenance of the sources of wealth, and the restoration of
climatic conditions in the integral composite manner.

9° Finally, wage labour, or indirect servitvde, guarantee of mis-
fortune, of persecution, of despair, for the workman in civilisation
or barbarism.

* * Striking contrast to the lot of the associative workman, who
is in full enjoyment of the nine natural definite rights.

After perusing this table, everyone can arrive at a conclusion,
and recognise that God, having had the option of these two kinds
of mechanism, of an ocean of absurdities and an ocean of per-
fection, could not even have deliberated about his choice.

Any hesitation would have formed a contradiction to hiTl
characteristics, nota bly to that of economy of means : he would I
have acted in opposition to it in choosing the disjointed order and J
proscribing Association, which effects every species of economy : !
saving coercion, stagnation, health, time, ennui, hand-labour,
machinery, contrivances, uncertainties, knavery, preventives, waste,
and duplicity of action.

All the sophists agree in declaring that man is made for society :
according to this principle ought man to aim for the smallest or
the largest society possible ? It is beyond doubt that it is in the
largest that all the mechanical and economical advantages will be
found : and since we have only attained the infinitely small,
" family-labour /^^(**lravai7 familiar^), is any other indication re-
quired to verify the fact that civilisation is the antipodes of destiny
as well as of truth? — (U. U., iv., 126, 128.)

Short-sighted politicians, who thought they were making wise
tests when they experimented with small aggregations of about
twenty families, fell into the double error :

i^ Of making attempts vnth a smxill number, which yields neither
large economies nor the resources of mechanism.

2** Of making the family -spirit the spring of action ; a spirit,
which, tending to egoism, ought to be absorbed in corporate union.

124 Selections from the Works of Fourier

I St Mistake. Induction from the small to the great: it is
doubtless quite impossible to unite 2, 3, 4 households, and
even 10 to 12; the conclusion has therefore been drawn that it
would be so much the more impossible to unite 2 to 300 of
them.

In this view of the case, the moderns may be compared to
timid navigators, like those who, before Christopher Columbus,
did not dare advance beyond 200, 300, 400 leagues upon the
Atlantic ; each one returned full of consternation, declaring that
that ocean was a boundless abyss, and that it was folly to venture
upon it. Had a more daring spirit pushed out 600 or 800
leagues without discovering America, everybody would most
complacently have concluded that the hypothesis of a new con-
tinent was an absurdity. Finally, if a vessel, still bolder, had
pushed out 1,000 or 1,200 leagues, it would likewise have re-
turned unsuccessful, and everyone would so much the more have
classed the attempt in the rank of follies ; yet, in order to
succeed, it was only necessary to persist and advance 1,800
leagues.

Such is the method that should have been followed in the study
of Association. The only effort required of genius was to persist
in advancing, not to be discouraged by experiments on a small
scale, not to conclude from the small to the great, but to keep on
with experiments on a gradually ascending scale. If an experi-
ment with 4 families proved a failure, it should have been tried
with 8; 8 proving a failure, with 16; if 16 miscarried, with 32,
then with 64, then with 100. Having reached that point, they
would have succeeded provided they had discovered the methods
of the passionate Series and short sessions, which are easily found
if the experiments are made with 350 to 400 persons. Had these
experiments been pursued fbr half a century, the discovery would
necessarily have been made of the mechanism of the series, which
will be described in this work. — (U. U., iii., 508.)

The bodies of colonists which are often formed in Europe, and
which emigrate to America or the Crimea, would not be suitable
for an experiment of even minimum association, termed «oia-

Of Association 125

hmigrée. /l\\t, mechanism of the series requires a graduated^/
variety of age, fortune, character, knowledge, etc/^he low
grade No. i is the least exacting as regards this variety, but yet
it requires some gradation, and that is what is lacking in these
assemblages of emigrants for the colonies : they consist of people
for the most part without means ; they frequently have no old
people or children ; they lack many other indispensable features.
However, if one of these assemblages were chosen as a nucleus,
it would be easy to add the variety required for the low grade of
400 persons.

It would not, then, suffice to combine a certain number of
people; it is necessary, besides, to assort them according to
graduated inequalities of every property, and to extend the scale
of inequality in proportion to the degree of the experiment ; that
is to say, that in the high degree the scale of gradation should
range from the man without any means, grade o, up to the man
owning a hundred millions ; while in the low degree a scale of
small graduated fortunes, o to 20,000 francs of capital, will be
sufficient. — (U. U., iii., 439.)

Various sophists, doubtless well-intentioned, have within recent
years published somewritings upon an inferior branch of association.

They have all been mistaken, beginning with the title ; for they
have taken for the chief social bond an inconsiderable subdivision
which leads only to the farming-out and monopoly of great indus-
tries, — a bond which ought to be denominated share-holding
concentration.

Share-holding concentration unites the heads and not the
co-operators ; it is an arrangement, specious enough, which starts
out brilliantly and recommends itself by great and useful enter-
prises ; such are, in the material world, the Caledonian Canal ; in
the political, the English East India Company.

But whither does such action tend ? what would its influence be
when, once become general, it should have invaded and delivered
over to joint-stock companies all branches of industry? I say
ALL, because if these companies are as yet ignorant of the means
of reducing agriculture to a monopoly through contractors and

1

126 Selections from the Works of Fourier

sub-contractors, they will very soon discover those means ; Vappetit
vient en mangeant ; then, taking advantage of a moment of war and
distress, they will persuade the Government to grant them the
concession.

Then would be organised a federation of graduated and affiliated
monopolies, — the advent of commercial feudalism, or the fourth
phase of civilised progress.

Civilisation began with leagues of vassals or oligarchs, noble or
patriarchal ; it is destined to end with the return of great vassals
of a différent species, the merchants or heads of joint stock com-
panies. The meeting of extremes is a general law of motion,
a law which is reproduced in all material phenomena, as, for
instance, in the phases of the moon, which, beginning with a
direct crescent, ends with an inverse crescent.

If for shareholding-ccmcentration the title of association is claimed,
it is taking the form for the substance, since the substance em-
braces two primordial functions : agricultural and domestic
administration, to which our present writers have devoted no
attention. They understand how to join only the upper links,
the heads. In association they have grasped the shadow, not the
reality.

Despite this error, the sophists whom I refute are none the
less praiseworthy for their efforts. All science begins with
groping, partial successes, leading by degrees to an unequal
solution of problems. Now, this groping, which I have de-
\ scribed under the name of concentration, is more laudable than
\the apathy of the preceding ages regarding the most urgent of
questions. — (U. U., i.. Preface 96, 97.)

We see in the civilised régime gleams of association, merely
material, gerins due to instinct and not to science. Instinct
.. teaches tne hundred families of a village that a common oven
\_will involve much less expenditure in masonry and fuej/than a
hundred small household ovens, and that it will be better
managed by two or three practised bakers than the hundred
small ovens by a hundred women, who will, twice out of three

Of A ssociation 127

times, fail to secure the proper degree of heat for the oven and
the proper baking of the bread.

Good sense has taught the inhabitants of the north that if each
family desired to produce its own beer, it would be more
expensive than good wines. A domestic union, a military mess,
comprehend instinctively that a single kitchen, cooking for thirty
guests, will be better and less costly than twenty separate kitchens.

The peasants of the Jura, seeing that a certain cheese, called
Gruyère, could not be prepared from the milk of a single house-
hold, combine together, take their milk daily to a common
work-house, where an account is kept of each one's contribution,
noted in figures upon pieces of wood ; and from the aggregation
of these small quantities of milk, they produce, at slight expense,
a great cheese in a huge kettle. — (N. M., 7.)

A presentiment of the discovery of industrial association has
for some time existed in England, which is instituting active
researches and costly experiments in the organisation of domestic
association. The English, confused by beholding, the same as
everywhere else, the wretchedness of the masses increase in
proportion to the national wealth and the advance in industry,
must have thought that it required some new method to emerge
from this labyrinth. /'They rightly presumed that associative
industry would afford expedients whereby the lot of the lower
classes would be ameliorated / their attempts have not proved
fortunate ; this failure ought not to astonish them : association J
was a virgin field, a new scientific world, where one must needs
go astray without the guide of theory or compass.

According to the details furnished by the journalists of the
English establishments confided to the direction of Mr. Owen, it
appears that three capital errors Jiave been committed there, of
which each one independently would have been sufficient to
cause the failure of the undertaking; let us analyse these
errors.

i<» ^^ceji_^_ numbers. There are, it is said, 500 or 600
families engaged in these attempts, say 3,000 individuals. That
is far too many, for the highest degree of association admits only

128 Selections from the Works of Fourier

16,000 to 17,000 persons, men, women, and children, and the
lowest degree may be limited to 400.

2"^ Equality, This is a political poison in association ; the
English are ignorant of that fact, and constitute their commuities
of families of about equal fortune. The associative régirne is as
incompatible with equality of fortune as, with uniformity^ of _
character; it desires a progressive scale in every direction, the
greatest variety in employments, and, above all, the union of
extreme contrasts, such as that of the man of opulence with one
of no means, a fiery character with an apathetic one, youth with
age, etc.

3° The absence of agriculture. It is impossible to organise a
regular and well-balanced association without bringing into play
the labours of the field, or at least gardens, orchards, flocks and
herds, poultry-yards, and a great variety of species, animal and
vegetable. They are ignorant of this principle in England, where
they experiment with artisans, with manufacturing, labour alone,
which cannot by itself suffice to sustain social union. Factories
are requisite in the three modes of association, but they are inter-
posed only as stages between agricultural labours, which are the
mainstay of industrial rivalries and intrigues.

Chief error : the head denies himself all share in the profits ; he
lacks the motive of interest.

A statement of these errors is sufficient to establish the fact
that the moderns have been very far from the discovery of the
principles of association. — (U. U., ii., 35.)

Owen's scheme of communism had some vogue at first, because
it was a mask for party spirit, a veil to cover the secret plan which
tends to destroy the clergy and religion. That perspective caused
the whole coterie of atheism to rally round the preacher Owen.
As for his other two dogmas, that of community of goods is so
pitiful that it is not worthy of refutation ; that of the sudden
\ abolishment of marriage is also a monstrosity.

Genuine association will pursue the three opposite courses : 1**
It will be religious through inclination, through conviction of the
exalted wisdom of God, whose benefits it will enjoy every moment.

Of Association 129

Public worship will be a necessity for it : the most insignificant
vicar will be as well placed as the bishops of to-day, land it will be
necessary to create at least thirty thousand priests in France by
hasty ordination, in order that each phalanx may contain a suffi-
cient number to allow them to discharge their duties in relays,
not subjecting them to a daily exercise of their functions ;/2® in
opposition to the spirit of communism, the spirit of ownership \
will be aroused by labour-coupons and economic votes, accorded
to the proletarians who shall, by assiduous economy, have accumu-
lated one-twelfth of the capital entitling one to a vote in the \
areopagus : such votes will be granted for many other reasons as
well, so as to avoid imitating the civilised, who, in their system of
representation, estimate merit only by the token of money /3° as
regards marriage, it has been seen that it will wiih time be
modified, graduated, and not suppressed ; and the question will
only be agitated by degrees in the succeeding generation, when
the modifications shall have been voted by four combined classes : ■
government, the clergy, fathers, and husbands. . I

However, it is a proof of the intellectual convulsion of the age \
that it has allowed itself to be deluded in regard to the most im- !
portant problem of the social world, in regard to the associative]
mechanism, 'by a preacher who has neither new doctrines nor
distinct dogmas. His scheme of destruction of the clergy is a
residue of revolution : if all the classes that abused their functions

were'ïô"^ abolished, I know not what class among the civilised
could be maintained. His dogma of communism is a rehash of
Sparta and Rome ; that of free love is likewise a plagiarism from
various peoples, among others the Nepaulians, the Otaheitans, etc.
— (N. M., 473.)

To sum up, all our reformers feel and proclaim the necessity of
uniting the working classes into masses or social phalanxes^ but
they do not wish to acknowledge that the^associative process
belongs to a science ofwhich the economists have no conception,,
and of whicfîTiTone have fornaulated a regular thepry, ample and
without gaps, attacking and solving all problems, boldly present-
ing those before which all economists have recoiled, such as the

I

I30 Selections from the Works of Fourier

equilibrium of population, industry attractive and guaranteeing
the good morals of the people.^ — (F. I., 9.)

^The Jesuits of Paraguay had given to association (forced, equivocal) quite
a great development : but everything that is based upon coercion is fragile and
denotes the absence of genius. — (Manuscrits, p. 66.)

CHAPTER XI

THE COMMUNAL COUNTING-HOUSE

Merchants are occupied solely with crushing each other : such
is the effect of free competition. It is necessary that agriculture,
crushed by their underhand dealings, should resort to the freedom
enjoyed by commerce and crush them in its turn, by an under-
taking which I shall designate as the joint-stock communal counting-
house, an establishment serving the purposes of commerce and
agricultural management, acting as a depository, and advancing
money to the consigner. The said counting-house calculated for
sub-divisions consisting of at least 1,500 people, would be provided
with a garden, loft, cellar, kitchen, and communal factories — two
at the least.

How ought such establishments to be organised ? That is a
question I shall not enter into here, where I merely wish to point
out the chief advantages of the joint-stock communal counting-
house, which, among other properties, would possess those of :

Reducing hy half the domestic administration of poor and even
medium, households ;

Paying upon a certain fixed day, in advance and udthout in-
volving expense, the taxes of the community;

Advancing money at the lowest market rate to every agriculturist
whose estate presented a guarantee;

Furnishing each individtuil vrith every commodity, indigenous (yr
foreign, at the lowest rates, hy freeing him from the intermediary
profits obtained hy merchants and johhers ;

Securùig profitable employment at all seasons (of the year) to the
indigent class ; varied occupations, without excess or subordination
of either field or factory labour.

132 Selections from the Works of Fourier

{

There has been a foreshadowing of the establishment in question,
communal Guaranteeism, both in a general and in a partial
sense :

Experiment in the general sense : it was a feeling of the necessity
of assisting the poor of the country districts that occasioned the
reservation of woods and pasture-lands, under the name of
commomy designed both for the poor and the rich. It is admitted
that the arrangement is a mistaken one, that the poor devastate
the commons, and that they are miserably managed. In this
enterprise for general usefulness, then, the means employed for
helping the poor have proved a failure.

The partial attempts have been even greater failures, such as
the district banks and other companies, which, pretending to
assist agriculture and the small proprietor, have been convicted of
vexatious usury, of lending at a yearly interest of 17 per cent.
Present-day genius is only prolific of this species of inventions.

These different forms of assistance and a hundred others would
be provided by the joint-stock communal counting-house. Let us
imagine it organised, without lingering over the details of its
arrangement. It is a vast establishment which saves the poor
man every kind of petty labour. This poor man is the owner of
a small field and a small vineyard ; but how can he have a good
loft, a good cellar, good casks, adequate implements and
contrivances ? He finds all these in the communal counting-
house ; he may, after an agreement as to terms, deposit his grain
and his wine there, and receive an advance of two-thirds of their
supposed value. That is all that would be desired by the peasant,
always compelled to sell at a very low rate at harvest-time. He
would not dread paying interest upon an advance ; he always pays
1 2 per cent, interest for an advance to the usurers ; he will bless the
counting-house which will advance him money at 6 per cent,
a year — the commercial rate — and save him the expenses of
management; for a small farmer will be paid at the counting-house,
without furnishing the contrivances for doing a work which he
would have done gratuitously in his own place, with the added
expense of those contrivances. In point of fact :

The Communal Counting-House 133

He has consigned his crop — twenty quintals of wheat and two
hogsheads of wine — to the counting-house; it is not he who
furnishes the sacks, the casks, and the waggons and animals used
to convey them to the market ; his harvest reaped and stored, he
works by the day for the counting-house, and is paid, while at the
same time he is attending to his wheat and his wine, which are
being raised in value, for they are added to a mass of grain, a tun of
wine of the same quality. He may even be saved the trouble of
fermentation, and have his vintage accepted according to the
customary valuation.

The labour required to protect the grain from rats and beetles,
and to manipulate four or five tons, amounts to about one-tenth
of that which would be entailed in a great number of petty
households, the poorest of which will be casually employed by the
counting-house in its granaries, cellars, gardens, and workshops.
They cannot at any time lack work there, and the benefit they
derive by consigning to the counting-house is so much the more
considerable in that it allows them ample time for rest, through
saving of manipulation and even of cooking, for, upon consigning
any commodities, they draw upon the communal kitchen for a
certain quantity of provisions, imitating our small households,
which, in order to economise, get their meals from a restaurant.

The counting-house lays in a supply of all such articles as
are sure of a demand ; ordinary stuffs, commodities of primary
necessity, and drugs in general use. By procuring them from
their sources, it is able to furnish them to the consigners at a small
profit, to show them the accounts of the purchase and costs.
These advantages constitute so many attractions for consigning.
If the counting-house is well managed it ought in less than three
years to be metamorphosed into semi-association ; for it will be
sought by the rich as well as the poor ; every rich person will seek
the advantage of being a voting shareholder in it ; the small non-
shareholding consigner will, in the sittings of the Exchange, have a
consulting voice as to the chances of sale ; the shareholder will
vote on the sales and purchases.

Nothing pleases a countryman, and particularly a peasant, more

134 Selections from the Works of Fourier

than assemblies of commercial intrigue. That is an attraction

which he would enjoy weekly at the communal counting-house

where he would gather intelligence of commercial correspondence,

and where would be debated the expediency of sales and

purchases. The peasant, though little disposed to illusions,

would eagerly covet the vainglory of the shareholder debating

sales and purchases in the communal counting-house, or at least

the rank of consigner with a consulting voice. Peasants form an

I exchange every Sunday ; at the church entrance, before or after

! high mass ; they form an exchange in the markets and taverns,

where they exhaust themselves with inquiries and prattle, about

the state of affairs, about the rise and decline in commodities :

; they would, at the counting-house, have a genuine exchange, and

\ be eager, in order to figure there, to become shareholders, or

j consigners, or both.

It would have been very fitting to inaugurate such establish-
ments in the small market-towns which contain an unoccupied
monastery. It could easily have been adapted to the uses of the
communal counting-house, particularly as the monks paid great
attention to the construction of their lofts and cellars, had
extensive gardens, — a necessary requirement of the establishments
in question, — and huge halls well suited for reunions, and for
" three '* factories. The counting-house must be provided with
the latter, in order to furnish varied occupation in winter as well
as in summer to the poorer class, and not disgust them with
labour by the uniformity which prevails in our public and private
workshops, — a monotony in direct opposition to the designs
of Nature, which demands variety in industry as in all other
things.

The communal counting-house would, in its organisation,
resemble Harmonist methods as closely as possible : it could have
fields and flocks, in proportion to its means, at its service ; and it
would always give its employees, even the poorest of them, a part
interest in some special products, such as wool, fruits, vegetables,
etc., in order to awaken in them that activity, that industrial
solicitude, which is generated by associative participation, and to

\

The Communal Counting- House 135

preserve them from the indifference which characterises civilised
wage-earners.

Such an enterprise should have been the first to engross the
attention of societies devoted to the maintenance of agricultural
industry. — (U. U., iii., 281-285.)

The most conspicuous advantage would be the downfall of
commerce. All the repositories (fermes d^asile) would co-operate,
through the medium of the minister and the prefects, to do
without merchants, to carry on their buying and selling directly
with each other ; they would have an abundance of commodities
for sale, because they would have storehouses where the small
cultivators or proprietors who have neither good lofts nor good
cellars, nor a quantity of servants, would gladly deposit their
products, paying a moderate charge for storage and sale. Besides,
the owner would, on depositing in these storehouses, receive an
advance at a moderate rate of interest, and thereby be relieved
from premature sales, which cause the debasement of
commodities.

Henceforth all the friends of commerce, the hosts of merchants,
would find themselves stranded, hke a string of spiders that perish
in their web for lack of insects when it is shut up so tight that it
precludes admission. This downfall of the merchants would be
the result of free competition, for they would not be prevented
from trading; but nobody would have confidence in them, ,
because the repositories and their provincial agencies would offer
adequate guarantees of truth. — (N. M., 433.) ]

By building upon this foundation there could already be erected )
an edifice of semi-happiness, or guaranteeism, a period between j
the civilised state and the associative state. j

Semi-association is collective without being individual ; with ou \
joining lands or households in a combined management. It
admits the isolated labour of families; but it establishes a
solidarity or comparative assurance among them extending over
the entire mass, so that no individual may be excepted from the
benefits of the guarantees.

The counting-house referred to, among its other undertakings,

1

136 Selections from the Works of Fourier

would have a pharmacy, where it would make an honest profit,
while, at the same time, rendering valuable services to the
villagers.

The same would be the case with a hundred other social
benefits, upon which time is wasted in vain dreams : they can
only be the firuit of associative methods, and not of unassociated
labour. Now, the first, the smallest germ of agricultural associa-
tion is the communal counting-house — initiative and sketch of
social union, quickest road for entering upon guaranteeism, or
the sixth period. That, therefore, was the inquiry which should
have engaged the attention of students who profess to attain
social guarantees without abandoning disjointed labour and
incoherent management : — where shall we find students willing to
devote their vigils to useful inventions, when it is so easy to
acquire fame by sophistry ! — (U. U., iii., 296.)

CHAPTER XII

THE PHALANSTERY

The announcement does, I acknowledge, sound very improbable,
of a method for combining three hundred families unequal in
fortune, and rewarding each person, — man, woman, child —
according to the three properties, capital^ labour, talent. More
than one reader will credit himself with humour when he re-
marks : " Let the author try to associate but three families, to
reconcile three households in the same dwelling to social union,
to arrangements of purchases and expenses, to perfect harmony
in passions, character, and authority ; when he shall have suc-
ceeded in reconciling three mistresses of associated households,
we shall believe that he can succeed with thirty and with three
hundred."

I have already replied to an argument which it is well to re-
produce (for repetition will frequently be necessary here) ; I have
observed that as economy can spring only from large combinations,
God had to create a social theory applicable to large muasses and not
to three or four families.

An objection seemingly more reasonable, and which needs to
be refuted more than once, is that of social discords. How con-
ciliate the passions, the conflicting interests, the incompatible
characters, — in short, the innumerable disparities which engender
so much discord ?

It may easily have been surmised that I shall make use of a
lever entirely unknown, and whose properties cannot be judged
until I shall have explained them. The passional contrasted
Series draws its nourishment solely from those disparities which
bewilder civilised policy ; it acts like the husbandman who from

138 Selections from the Works of Fourier

a mass of filth draws the germs of abundance ; the refuse, the
dirt, and impure matter which would serve only to defile and
infect our dwellings, are for him the sources of wealth. — (U. U.,
ii., 29.)

If social experiments have miscarried, it is because some
fatality has impelled all speculators to work with bodies of poor
people whom they subjected to a monastic-industrial discipline,
chief obstacle to the working of the series. Here, as in every-
thing else, it is ever simplism {simplisme) which misleads the
civilised, obstinately sticking to experiments with combinations of
the poor ; they cannot elevate themselves to the conception of a
trial with combinations of the rich. They are veritable Lemning
rats (migrating rats of Lapland), preferring drowning in a pond
to deviating from the route which they have decided upon.^ —
(U. U., iii., 156.)

It is necessary for a company of 1,500 to 1,600 persons to have
a stretch of land comprising a good square league, say a surface
of six million square toises (do not let us forget that a third of that
would suffice for the simple mode). ^

^ It has been urged that I made an experiment at Condé S. V., and that it
did not succeed ; that, too, is one of the calumnies of pandemonium. I did
nothing at Condé ; an architect, who held sway there, was not willing to allow
any part of my plan. His was a spirit of contradiction, repelling everything
that did not proceed from himself ; a rabid Anglomaniac, who would have
nothing but what he had seen in England, or rather, his fancies, which raried
from one day to the next.

In vain did I represent to him that he could not in England have seen
buildings arranged for industry carried on by series of groups, for none such
are to be found there ; he took no notice of that, and, after changing his plans
ten times and shifting his landmarks as often, he began by constructing a
provisional rhapsody upon swampy ground, below the level of the water. I
could not agree to this absurd method of building, which would not have been
of any use in combined industry, and which only served to disgust visitors, to
prevent them from taking shares, and to give the propitious moment of favour
the slip. I severed my connection with the affair, had nothing further to
do with it, not wishing to compromise myself by appearing to co-operate
in arrangements which served no purpose for the associative mechanism. —

(F. I., 5.)

21 had promised a very detailed article upon approximations to the
associative mechanism : Companies with slender means might wish to start on
a small scale ; that is the favourite method of the French, — to outline, to grope.
The greater number would advocate a trial reduced to a half, to 900 persont,
or to a third, 600 persons.

The Phalanstery 139

The land should be provided with a fine stream of water ; it
should be intersected by hills, and adapted to varied cultivation ;
it should be contiguous to a forest, and not far removed from a
large city, but sufficiently so to escape intruders.

The experimental Phalanx standing alone, and without the
support of neighbouring phalanxes, will, in consequence of this
isolation, have so many gaps in attraction, and so many passional
calms to dread in its workings, that it will be necessary to provide
it with the aid of a good location fitted for a variety of functions.
A flat country such as Antwerp, Leipsic, Orleans, would be totally
unsuitable, and would cause many Series to fail, owing to the
uniformity of the land surface. It will, therefore, be necessary to
select a diversified region, like the surroundings of Lausanne, or,
at the very least, a fine valley provided with a stream of water and
a forest, like the valley of Brussels or of Halle. A fine location
near Paris would be the stretch of country lying between Poissy
and Gonfleurs, Poissy and Meulan.

A company will be collected consisting of from 1,500 to 1,600
persons of graduated degrees of fortune, age, character, of
theoretical and practical knowledge ; care will be taken to secure
the greatest amount of variety possible, for the greater the number
of variations either in the passions or the faculties of the members,
the easier will it be to make them harmonise in a short space of
time.

In this district devoted to experiment, there ought to be com-
bined every species of practicable cultivation, including that in
conservatories and hot-houses ; in addition, there ought to be at
least three accessory factories, to be used in winter and on rainy

I call their attention to the fact that in reducing a mechanism, its system is
perverted, unless all the parts are retained : we can reduce a huge belfry-clock
to proportions small enough to be enclosed in a minute case, to a watch an
inch in diameter ; but this watch contains all the parts of the large mechanism,
even the arrangement for striking; hence, the system, though reduced, is not
changed.

It is not so with a mechanism of the passions : in order to reduce it in the
same proportion as the cathedral clock to a little watch, we should have to
have miniature people, Liliputians half a foot high, and animals and vegetables
of proportionate dimensions. — (N. M., 3S0.)

^

140 Selections from the Works of Fourier

^ days ; furthermore, various practical branches of science and the
arts, independent of the schools.

Above all, it will be necessary to fix the valuation of the capital
invested in shares ; lands, materials, flocks, implements, etc. This
point ought, it seems, to be among the first to receive attention ; I
think it best to dismiss it here. I shall limit myself to remarking
that all these investments in transferable shares and stock-coupons
will be represented.

A great difficulty to be overcome in the experimental Phalanx
will be the formation of the ties of high mechanism or collective
bonds of the Series, before the close of the first season. It will
be necessary to accomplish the passional union of the mass of
the members ; to lead them to collective and individual devotion
to the maintenance of the Phalanx, and, especially, to perfect
harmony regarding the division of the profits, according to the
three factors. Capital, Labour, Talent,

This difficulty will be greater in northern than in southern
countries, owing to the difference between devoting eight months
and five months to agricultural labour.
/ An experimental Phalanx, being obliged to start out with
agricultural labour, will not be in full operation until the month
of May (in a climate of 50 degrees, say in the region around
London or Paris) ; and, since it will be necessary to form the bonds
of general union, the harmonious ties of the Series, before the
suspension of field labour, before the month of October, there
will be barely five months of full practice in a region of 50
degrees : the work will have to be accomplished in that short
space.

The trial would, therefore, be much more conveniently made
in a temperate region, like Florence, Naples, Valencia, Lisbon,^

1 Nature supplies every globe with a focus, or central seat of government.
Our focus is Constantinople, a locality favoured with every species of perfec-
tion.

Mouth of a great and splendid salt-water river ^ which bears vessels of the
largest size, and which, issuing from a sea, forms neither alluvia nor deltas,

i^ Gigantic harbour, as convenient as it is magnificent.

2^ Small fresh- water river, very pure, situated at the head of the harbour,
and adequate for the required supply.

The Phalanstery 141

where they would have eight to nine months of full cultivation
and a far better opportunity to consolidate the bonds of union,
since there would be but two or three months of passional
calm remaining to tide over till the advent of the second spring, a
time when the Phalanx, resuming agricultural labour, would form
its ties and cabals anew with much greater zeal, imbuing them
with a degree of intensity far above that of the first year; it
would thenceforth be in a state of complete consolidation, and
strong enough to weather the passional calm of the second
winter.

We shall see in the chapter on hiatuses of attraction, that the
first Phalanx will, in consequence of its social isolation and other
impediments inherent to the experimental canton, have twelve
special obstacles to overcome, obstacles which the Phalanxes
subsequently founded would not have to contend with. That is
why it is so important that the experimental canton should have
the assistance coming from field-work prolonged eight or nine
months, like that in Naples and Lisbon. — (U. U., iii., 427, 429.)

As for the selection to be made among the candidates, rich and
poor, various qualities which are accounted vicious or useless in
civilisation should be looked for ; such are :

A good ear for music.
Good manners of families.
Aptitude for the fine arts.

3*^ Purifying eddy, skirting, sweeping the harbour, and carrying off the
surplus of fresh water.

4*^ Situation, semi-central in the great continent, and accessible by sea from
the small one.

5*^ Locality within reach of the products of all zones.

6*^ Meeting-point for all lines of communication by sea and land.
' 1^ Surpassing beauty of its diversified sites, and of the view, both near and

distant.

The most propitious and the most grateful climate^ after correction of the
temperature by general cultivation and transformation of the noxious winds of
the Black Sea^ caused by the uncultivated condition of the east and the north.

Favoured with so many advantages, that site will be selected for the capital
of the globe, with the advent of the third generation of Harmony ; after the
time required to rebuild the city, and divide it among urban phalanxes, that
will not tolerate our unwholesome dwellings.— (F. I., 8.)

142 Selections from the Works of Fourier

And various rules which are contrary to philosophic ideas should
be followed.

To prefer families having few children.

To have one-third of the organisation consist of celibates.

To seek characters regarded as peculiar.

To establish a graduated scale respecting age, fortune,
knowledge.
In view of the necessity of uniform education and fusion of the
classes among children, I have advised, what I now reiterate,
the selection, for the experimental Phalanx, of well-bred families,
particularly in the lower class, since it will be necessary to have
that class mingle in labour with the rich, and to make the latter
find a charm in this amalgamation. That charm will be greatly
dependent upon the good breeding of the inferiors ; that is why
the people in the environs of Paris, Blois, and Tours will be very
suitable for the trial, provided, of course, that a proper selection
is made. — (N. M., 104, 178.)

Let us proceed with the details of composition.
At least seven-eighths of the members ought to be cultivators
and manufacturers ; the remainder will consist of capitalists,
scholars, and artists.

The Phalanx would be badly graded and difficult to balance, if
among its capitalists there were several having 100,000 francs,
several 50,000 francs, without intermediate fortunes. In such a case
it would be necessary to seek to procure intermediate fortunes of
60,000, 70,000, 80,000, 90,000 francs. The Phalanx best graduated
in every respect raises social harmony and profits to the highest
degree. — (U. U., iii., 431.)

One is tempted to believe that our sybarites would not wish to
be associated with Grosjean and Margot : they are so even now
(as I believe I have already pointed out). Is not the rich man
obliged to discuss his affairs with twenty peasants who occupy his
farms, and who are all agreed in taking illegal advantage of him ?
He is, therefore, the peasant's associate, obliged to make inquiries
about the good and the bad farmers, their character, morals,
solvency, and industry; he does associate in a very direct

The Phalanstety 143

and a very tiresome way with Grosjean and Margot. In
Harmony, he will be their indirect associate, being relieved of
accounts regarding the management, which will be regulated by
the regents, proctors, and special officers, without its being neces-
sary for the capitalist to intervene or to run any risk of fraud.
He will, therefore, be freed from the disagreeable features of his
present association with the peasantry ; he will form a new one,
where he will not furnish them anything, and where they will only
be his obliging and devoted friends, in accordance with the
details given regarding the management of the Series and of
reunions. If he takes the lead at festivals, it is because he has
agreed to accept the rank of captain. If he gives them a feast, it
is because he takes pleasure in acknowledging their continual
kind attentions.

Thus the argument urged about the repugnance to association
between Mondor and Grosjean, already associated in fa^t, is only,
Uke all the others, a quibble devoid of sense. — (U. U., iv.,

518.

The edifice occupied by a Phalanx does not in any way

resemble our constructions, whether of the city or country ; and
none of our buildings could be used to establish a large Harmony
of 1,600 persons, — not even a great palace like Versailles, nor a
great monastery like the Escurial. If, for the purposes of experi-
ment, only an inconsiderable Harmony of 200 or 300 members,
or a hongrée of 400 members is organised, a monastery or a palace
(Meudon) could be used for it.

The lodgings, plantations, and stables of a Society conducted
on the plan of Series of groups, must differ vastly from our
villages and country towns, which are intended for families having
no social connection, and which act in a perverse manner ; in
place of that class of Httle houses which rival each other in filth
and ungainliness in our little towns, ^ a Phalanx constructs an

1 The principle of simple ownership is the right of arbitrarily obstructing
the general goody in order to gratify individual fancies. Accordingly, we see
full liberty granted to the vandals who follow their fancy for compromising
healthfulncss and beauty by erecting grotesque constructions, caricatures,
which are sometimes more costly than handsome, good builHings. These

\

c

144 Selections from the Works of Fourter

edifice for itself which is as regular as the ground permits :
here is a sketch of distribution for a location favourable to
development.

The central part of the Palace or Phalanstery ought to be
appropriated to peaceful uses, and contain the dining-halls, halls
for finance, libraries, study, etc. In this central portion are
located the place of worship, the tour d^ordrCy the telegraph, the
post-office boxes, the chimes for ceremonials, the observatory, the
winter court adorned with resinous plants, and situated in the
rear of the parade-court.

One of the wings ought to combine all the noisy workshops,
such as the carpenter-shop, the forge, all ham mer- work ; it ought
to contain also all the industrial gatherings of children, who are
generally very noisy in industry and even in music. This com-
bination will obviate a great annoyance of our civilised cities,
where we find some man working with a hammer in every street,
some dealer in iron or tyro on the clarionet, who shatter the
tympanum of fifty families in the vicinity.

The other wing ought to contain the caravansary with its ball-
rooms and its halls appropriated to intercourse with outsiders, so
that these may not encumber the central portion of the palace
and embarrass the domestic relations of the Phalanx. — (U. U.,
iii., 447, 455.)

The Phalanstery, or edifice of the experimental Phalanx, ought
to be constructed of inexpensive material, — wood, brick, etc.,
because, I repeat, it would be impossible in that first attempt
to determine precisely the dimensions suitable either for each
individual seristery, the portion designed for the public relations
of the series, or for the various workshops, storerooms, stables,

etc.
An indication of the wrong spirit and impotence which prevail

vandals, with a cruel avarice, frequently build unwholesome, wretchedly
ventilated houses, into which they economically huddle a swarm of people ;
and these murderous speculations are dignified with the name of liberty. It
were as well to license the quacks, who, abusing the credulity of the people,
practise medicine without possessing any knowledge. They also can say that
they are turning their industry to account, that they are availiDg themselves of
imprescriptible rights, — (U. U., iii., 309.)

The Phalanstery 145

in this respect, is the fact that there is no law bearing upon
RELATIVE OBLIGATIONS, as regards healthfulness and beauty. For
instance, if a city buys and demolishes a collection of hovels which
obstructed four streets, it is certain that the houses on the four
sides adjacent to this collection will greatly rise in value ; there
will be a better circulation of air ; instead of having an ugly mask
opposite their façades, they will have a place ornamented with
trees and fountains ; they will, therefore, have gained considerably
by this demolition, and increased their rents in proportion.
They owe, in all fairness, a share in the resulting profit to the
community which has, with its money, procured them this increase
of the useful and the agreeable, this transition from the ill to the
good. Nevertheless, no law compels them to indemnify it by
relinquishing half of their profits. Far from it; the owner
favoured by this improvement will not bequeath a groat to the
community that has enriched him, and if it asks him for some
subsidy, some share in the profits, be it but a fourth, he will
answer ironically : " I did not request you to demolish the houses
which masked mine ; I do not owe you any indemnity for your
outlay in improvements." — (U. U., iii., 309, 310.)

In civilisation the idea has never been considered of perfecting
that part of our raiment which is called the atmosphere, with
which we are in perpetual contact. It is not sufficient to modify
it in the ml(m% of some people of leisure, who, themselves, will
take cold in going from their houses into the midst of the fog.
The atmosphere must be modified by a general system adapted
to all the functions of the human race; and this correction
ought to be COMPOSITE, affecting that which is essential, or the
general gradation of climates, and that which is accessory, or local
gradation, which they do not even know of in our capitals ; for
we see in Paris an open Bazaar, called the Palais Royal, whose
covered galleries are neither heated in winter nor ventilated
in summer. It is the superlative of poverty, compared to the
associative state, in which the poorest man will have heated and
ventilated passage-ways, tents and shelters for all his functions ;
outside of a small class of public services, such as the post, which

146 Selections from the Works of Fourier

must be carried on in the open air, whatever the temperature ;
but the exception of an eighth proves the rule. Besides, services
of this sort will be consigned to individuals whose temperament
can accommodate itself to it, and who will look upon it as play,
considering the large profits obtained. — (U. U., iii., 37.)

The most poverty-stricken of the Harmonians, a man who
hasn't a farthing, gets into a vehicle in a portico well heated and
inclosed; he goes from the Palace to the stables through paved and
gravelled underground passages; he passes from his dwelling to the
public halls and the workshops through galleried streets which are
heated in winter and ventilated in summer. In Harmony one can
pass through the workshops, stables, shops, ball-rooms, banquet
and assembly-halls, etc., in January, without knowing whether it
is rainy or windy, hot or cold ; and the details which I shall give
upon this subject authorise me to say that if the civilised after
3000 years of research have not yet learned how to house them-
selves, it is little surprising that they have not yet learned to direct
and harmonise their passions. When one fails in the pettiest
material calculations, one may well fail in the great calculations
concerning the passions.

This sheltered communication is all the more necessary in
Harmony in that the changes there are very frequent, the sessions
of the groups never lasting more than an hour or two. If the
^ Harmonians were obliged, in crossing from one hall to another,
from a stable to a workshop, to pass through the open air, the
result would be that they would, in a week of rigorous wintry
weather or fogs, be riddled with colds, inflammations, pleurisy, no
matter how robust their constitution. A state of things which
necessitates frequent changes imperatively demands sheltered
means ot communication ; and that is one of the reasons why it
will be very difficult 10 organise in a great monastery even the
smallest of Harmonies, the minimum decree K., although that
would be composed of the lower classes, quite inured to the rigours
of the atmosphere.

The galleried street, or continued Peristyle, is located in
the second story. It is not adaptable to the ground floor,

The Phalanstery 147

which must have openings at various points to admit of archways
for vehicles.

Those who have seen the gallery of the Louvre, or Musée de
Paris, may consider it as a model of the galleried street of Har-
mony — which will likewise have a floor and be placed in the
second story — save the difference in the openings and in height.

The dove-tail method of progression (before spoken of) should
be adopted ; by means of which a man or woman residing in the
centre, or ostentatious quarter, may be inferior in fortune to one
who occupies a dwelling in the wings, since the best apartments s
in the wings, renting for six hundred and fifty francs, are more ^ s
desirable than the poorest in the centre, renting for five hundred. .^^
This dove-tailing of values in progressive dwellings provides \^'| .
relief to the extreme series of the wings or winglets, and prevents ^ ^ ,

the distinctions of the simple scale, which would in many instances

w

3

be offensive to one's self-esteem. Too much care cannot be(/§Sy

taken to avoid this evil, which would constitute a germ of discord, i^ S*^
— (U. U., iii., 463-469.) 7

Each agricultural Phalanx forms seven classes in distributing
its eatables ; they are :

I St. The heads, .
2nd. The sick and patriarchs,

3rd. The first class, . . „ 100 „ o

4th. The second class, . . "'^'^ ' ^

5 th. The third class,
6th. The children from 2 to 4^,
7ih. The caravansary, unlimited number.
K. A lot of animals consuming the coarse eatables
and the refuse. — (U. U., iii., 48.)

The consequence is that the dishes of the third class, consisting
of the lowest stratum of people, will surpass in delicacy those
which at present constitute the delight of our gastronomes. As to
the variety of food which will be found upon the tables of the
peoplCi it cannot be estimated at less than thirty or forty dishes,

about 50

individuals.

» 50

>>

„ 100

n

» 300

»

„ 900

»

„ 100

})

^

T48 Selections from the Works of Fourier

renewed by thirds every day, along with a dozen different drinks,
varied at each meal.^ — (Q. M., 246.)

We find in our great cities an imperceptible germ of progressive
housekeeping ; it is the Circles or Cosmos for men and women ;
they are already causing people to desert the insipid family soirée.
There one can at a slight cost enjoy balls and concerts, all manner
of games, journals, and other kinds of diversion, which would be
ten times as costly in a private house. Every pleasure proves
economical there both in money and in effort, for the arrange-
ments are left to the official members , as in the progressive
household. But the Cvrdes or Casinos are subject to equality,
which impedes the developments of ambition, while the pro-
gressive household, being subdivided into rival and unequal
groups, opens a vast field to the three ambitious intrigues of
protector, protégé, and independent, — (Q. M., 175.)

One is dazzled by lingering a few moments over a picture of
the enormous benefits which would be derived from the union
of 300 households, in a single edifice, where they would find
apartments at various prices, covered ways from part to part,
tables of different classes, varied kinds of occupation — in short,
everything that tends to shorten and facilitate labour and to
render it attractive.

Let us enter into the details. I shall examine first the
advantages of the associative loft and cellar.

The 300 lofts which are to-day used by 300 families of villagers
(1500, 1600 individuals) would be replaced by an extensive and
salubrious storehouse divided into special compartments for each
commodity, and even for every variety of the different species.
One could there secure all the advantages of ventilation, dryness,
heating, exposure, etc., things which a villager cannot think of

1 The father of a family on reading this sketch will say : ** I take pleasure
in dining with my wife and my children, and, come what may, I shall main-
tain this habit which pleases me." That is a veiy poor judgment : it pleases
him now, in default of anything better, but after he shall Jhave seen the customs
of Harmony for two days, and been allured by the intrigues and cabals of the
Series, he will wish to dine with his cabalistic committees, and will send his
wife and children to the flock, while they on their side will ask for nothing
better than to be freed from the dismal family dinner. — (U. U., iii, 447.)

The Phalanstery 149

doing ; for it frequently happens that his entire hamlet is poorly
conditioned for the preservation of commodities. A Phalanx, on
the contrary, selects a favourable locality, both as regards the
whole and the details, such as the cellars, lofts, etc.

The outlay for this extensive storehouse in building, walls,
timber-work, roofing, doors, pulleys, fire-inspection, guarantees
against insects, etc., would amount to scarcely a tenth of that
involved in the villagers' 300 lofts, which are limited to one floor,
while three could be put under one roof. The associative store-
house would^use only ten doors and fastenings, while our villagers
use 300 doors ; and likewise of everything else.

It is, above all, in the precautions against fire, epizootics, and
damage, that the gain would be immense. Any measure for
general security is impracticable among 300 civilised families,
some of them too poor, others unskilled or malicious. Accord-
ingly we see, every year, the imprudence of a single household
cause the conflagration of a whole village, the contagious infec-
tion of all the cattle of the neighbourhood.

The precautions against animals and insects likewise prove
illusory in our villages because the entire community does not
co-operate ; thus, hunting wolves does not prevent these animals
from increasing. If, by dint of care, you destroy the rats in your
granaries, you will soon be invaded by those of neighbouring
granaries, and of fields which have not been purged by general
measures ; these are impossible in civilisation, where even the
getting rid of caterpillars cannot be effected, a measure yearly
enjoined by the mayors, but never executed. There will not be
a handful of caterpillars in the regions cultivated associatively ;
that is one of the insects that will disappear after the lapse of
three years of combined exploitation.

Combined administration gives rise to a multitude of economies
as to doings which we consider productive ; for example, three
hundred families of an agricultural village send to the markets,
not once, but twenty times in the course of a year. The peasant
delights in loitering about in the market-places and taverns ;
though he have nothing but a bushel of beans, he spends an

150 Selections from the Works of Fourier

entire day in the city. And for the three hundred fam lies, this
constitutes an average loss of 6,000 days of labour, not including
the cost of transportation, which is twenty times greater than in
association, which sells all its commodities in large quantities,
since, in that order, purchases are made only for Phalanxes
numbering about 1,500 individuals.

While economising in the complication of sales — ^the abuse of
sending three hundred persons to the markets instead of one,
conducting three hundred negotiations instead of one, — economy
is at the same time effected in the complication of labour. If a
canton sells 3,000 quintals of wheat to> three other cantons, the
work of grinding and baking will not extend to nine hundred
householders, but only to three. Thus, after saving 99 per cent
in distributive labour in the sales, this saving will be repeated in
the labour and management of the consumer. There will, there-
fore, be a double saving of 99 per cent. : and how many more of
a similar kind will occur !

Let us observe, in this connection, that associative economy
is almost always of a composite order ; like that which to the
saving of expense to the vendor adds, by way of counter-stroke,
the saving of expense to the consumer.

Let us pass from grains to liquids. The three hundred village
households have three hundred cellars and vat-chambers, attended
to with equal lack of knowledge and of skill. The damage in the
cellars is even greater than in the lofts, the handling of liquids
being a much more delicate and risky matter than that of
solids.

A Phalanx, whether for its wines, its oils, or its dairy products,
will have but a single repository.

As for casking, about thirty large casks would suffice, instead
of the thousand small ones used by the three hundred civilised
families. There would, therefore, be, besides the saving of nine-
tenths upon the building, a saving of nineteen-twentieths upon
casking, a thing very costly and doubly ruinous to our cultivators :
frequently, with a great outlay, they cannot maintain the vessels
in their cellars in a salubrious condition, and expose the liquid to

The Phalanstery 151

corruption, by a thousand errors which the associative manage-
ment would avoid.

Wine-making is, of all the branches of agricultural industry,
that in which the civilised are the most deficient. It is impossible
for peasants, and even for good land-owners, to give wine the
proper care.

' In the course of the autumn of 18 19, the district in which I lived
lost 10,000 puncheons of wine by sprouting, for the weak
qualities of wine require three sorts of attention which it is
impossible to give them in civilisation.

1° Good cellars built in a favourable location, either upon
rocky soil or upon elevated ground exposed to the north. Is the
peasant able to fulfil these conditions? not even the land-owner,
who uses such a cellar as chance has given him.

2® Daily airing of the cellars and casks. We do not see these
precautions observed in a village : the peasant possesses neither
the time, nor the capacity, nor the means. It is only a passional
series of the cellarists who can attend to such duties.

3° Crossing we ik wines with those of a strong quality, thus
properly fortifying the former. Neither the peasant nor the
bourgeois can think of providing himself with the warm wines
of Portugal, Spain, Calabria, Cyprus, etc. A Phalanx, which
negotiates for 1,500 persons, corresponds with every country and
readily procures, by the veracious commercial method, every
commodity required, and of such quality as it desires.

None of those mishaps which paralyse civilised agriculture will
be found to occur among the Harmonians. Moreover, the reaping
is done in a graduated way ; and when the mingling of what is
green, ripe, and over-ripe is avoided, much less chance is given
to the germs of corruption ; a Phalanx avoids them in every
instance, by appropriating special and enthusiastic groups to each
kind of labour ; by that means they escape the enormous waste
of which our statisticians forget to take account.

There is nothing in which economy is recognised as more
urgently needed than in fuel; this economy assumes vast pro-
portions in the associative state ; a Phalanx has only five kitchens
in place of three hundred ; namely :

152 Selections from the Works of Fourier

The administrative, or extra ;

The first, second, and third classes.

The provision for animals.
The whole can be supplied by three great fires, which, compared
to the 300 fires of a village, brings the economy in fuel to nine-
tenths.

It will be no less enormous in shop fires : it will be seen in the
treatise upon the passionate Series, that their groups, whether in
their relations in domestic or in manufacturing industry, their
relations in pleasure, balls, etc., always operate in large companies
and in connecting halls or Seristeries^ furnished with steam-stoves
which it is necessary to heat only three hours for the twenty-four.
Individual fires are very rare, except in the coldest part of winter,
each one as a rule seldom returning to his quarters before the
hour of retiring, when he contents himself with a little brasier
while undressing.

Moreover, the cold is not felt in the interior of the phalanstery ;
every portion of the main buildings is provided with covered
galleries, by means of which one can communicate with all parts,
sheltered from the inclemencies of the weather. People can go
to the workshops, the dining-halls, to balls and assemblies without
needing furs or boots, without exposing themselves to colds or
inflammations. The closed communication extends even from the
phalanstery to the stables, by underground gravelled passages or
by galleries supported upon columns at the level of the second
floor.

I have just passed in review some of the associative savings :
a successive examination of these shows them to amount always
to three-fourths or nine-tenths, and frequently to ninety-nine
hundredths. We have found it so in the case of the markets, the
sale and purchase of commodities ; even in petty concerns which
one does not to-day deign to take into account, and which assume
great importance when the saving amounts to ninety-nine in a
hundred, or even to forty-nine in fifty, like that of the milk-women.
If a village is situated near a city, we find that the three hundred
families will sometimes send a hundred milk-women with a hundred

The Phalanstery 153

cans of milk, the sale and transportation of which cause these /
women to lose a hundred mornings. I have observed that they "^^
can be replaced by a small cart drawn by an ass, and driven by a
woman; a gain of forty-nine fiftieths. The saving is doubled /
when we consider that the woman, distributing in two or three
great establishments (called progressive households, which will
constitute the associative régime of the cities), will return home
in half the time which it would have taken the hundred women :
this is a real gain of ninety-nine per cent, in time and in people.

The instances of saving I have just cited all relate to activities
already known and practised; we might enumerate a host of /
others which turn upon activities to be dispensed with : I shall
term them negative savings, — in contradistinction to the preceding,
which are positive, or diminution of labour without abolishment
of the service.

Let us define some kind of labour to be dispensed with, or
negative gain of Association : there is one that assumes vast
proportions, and that is, the precautions against theft.

The danger of theft obliges three hundred families of a village,
or at least the hundred in easiest circumstances, to make an un-
productive outlay in enclosure — walls, barricades, fastenings,
landmarks, dogs, ditches, day and night watchmen, and other
means of defence against tliieves. These useless and expensive
devices will be done away with in Association, which possesses
the property of preventing larceny, and dispensing with all
precautions against danger. We shall see this farther on.

Under associative conditions, it would be impossible for the
thief to reap any profit from the thing stolen, excepting in the
case of money; — but a people who live in ease and are imbued
with sentiments of honour do not even conceive any projects for
stealing. It will be shown that children, so essentially robbers of
fruit, would not, in the associative state, take an apple off a tree.

Let us analyse, in the case of fruit alone, the damage caused
by stealing. Everyone has had occasion to observe, in populous
cities, the market filled with unripe and very unwholesome fruits,
particularly stone-fruits. If the peasants are taken to task for

1 54 Selections from the Works of Fourier

this premature picking, this vegetable murder, every one of them
answers : they will he stolen if I wait for them to get ripe. We
have shown above that such theft vitiates the quality of all wines
by the practice of complete and simultaneous gathering, under
the puWic regulation of the time of vintage. Stealing likewise
vitiates other fruits, by compelling a premature gathering. On
account of reaping not being done at the proper time and in
three degrees, in order to avoid the mixing of the green, the ripe,
and the over-ripe, it is difficult, indeed impossible, to preserve
fruits. This inconvenience conduces, along with the lack of good
fruiterers and of scientific methods, to reduce the amount of fruit
preserved to one-twentieth, and to a reduction of a like proportion
in the cultivation of these vegetable products. — (U. U., iii., 7-17.)

CHAPTER XIII

SERIES AND GROUPS

A j;heory of Groups ! ! !

What is its object? It is to .ascertain by what methods the
associative bond is established^ so impracticable with the customs
of civilisation. It can only be organised by the empl^^^ *^

industrial groups and se rifis„of groups, holding short sessions ; /
there is no other means.

V This is sufficient to indicate how much attention students
ought to give to this summary, which is the foundation of the.
structure. One could not, without reading this chapter, proceed
to that of the treatise.

The groups, or elementary modes of social relations, are four 1
in number, in correspondence with the material elements of the \
universe. /TPollowing is the analogical table.

Major

Groups. Elements.

of Friendship, unisexual affection, Earth

of Ambition, corporative ** , Air

jMT. I of Love, bisexual ** , Aroma

\ ^'^^^^ I of Family, consanguineous** , Fire

\ Pivotal» of Unity ism or fusion of bonds Fire.

Thejiyotal group is only a composite bond, not an elementary
one; it is applicable to each of the other four.

No other bonds can be discovered in the social man. If he
does not form any of these four bonds, he becomes, like the wild
man of the Aveyron, a brute beast in human shape. /jEIe
progresses in sociableness {sociabilité) only in so far as hç
succeeds in forming one, or two, or three, or four groups. It is, \
therefore, by the analysis of groups that the study of the social *

1 56 Selections from the Works of Fourier

jaan should have been initiated^ — a thing entirely neglected, in

spite of all that is said.

The senses by themselves are not springs of^sodablene^, for

the most influential of them, that of taste, necessity of nourishment^

urges to anthropophagy. Sociableness, then^ depends upon thfi-

fqrmatipn of groups, or passionate leagues.

f The four groups exercise influence alternatively in the four
[phas es of life ; each one is dominant in one of the phasey as

shown in the following table :

Alternative Dominance of the Groups.

In anterior phase, or childhood, i to 15 years, friendship.

In citerior phase, or adolescence, 16 to 35 years, love. \

In focal phase , or virility, 36 to 45 years, love and ambitio^.

In ulterior phase, or maturity, 46 to 65 years, ambition. |

In posterior phase, or old age, 66 to 80 years, family feeling.

The succession of influences enumerated corresponds to that
of bud, flower, fruit, seed, — to the four ages of vegetation.

This table has no need of a commentary. It cannot be
disputed that friendship predominates in childhood, as love does
in youth ; that ambition prevails in mature life, and that old age,
isolated from the world, concentrates itself upon family affection,
being incapable of the other three feelings ; for civilised old age
is generally too mistrustful to surrender itself to a real friendship:
it is justly reproached with abandoning itself completely to egoism,
which is the opposite of friendship. ^ — (U. U., iii., 337-339.)

Let us first divide them into such as are harmonious and such
as are subversive.

1 That is an amusing sort of liberalism which desires everything for its own,
. and nothing for others. Such is the custom in civilised testaments : evcry-
; thing is bequeathed to one's family, as if no other class were worthy of
^ liberality ./The priesthood has had the good sense to rise up against this

familyegoism, and to induce the testators to make less exclusive bequests,—

to the parish, to hospitals, to monasteries.

Those who profess to be liberals ought to propagate this tendency in the

direction of friendship, and introduce the custom of leaving legacies to classes

in their province, — to learned societies and societies of artists, to bodies
_ organised for carrying on public works and improvements./ It is unpardonable
\ for a bachelor or a married man whose family is in easy circumstances to
' make a will exclusively in its favour. — (U. U., iii., 288.)

Series and Groups I57

A harmonious group is a perfectly independent body, united
by one or more affections common to the various individuals of
which the group is composed. - n

If a group is harmonious, the dominant or real passion is
consonant to the ionic or apparent passion (passion d^étoUage),

The group is subversive, when the dominant and the tonic are
different.

For instance, nothing is more common than gatherings of
pretended friends, each a mass of egoism, with nothing of friend-
ship but its mask, no real motive but interest. Such are fashion-
able assemblies, where not a shadow of the devotion affected is
felt Each one comes there with designs of personal ambition,
gallantry, gluttony, pretending meanwhile to be actuated solely
by pure and ardent friendship.

These groups have a dominant contradictory to the tonic. In
fact, their tonic or apparent passion is friendship ; their dominant
or real motive is personal interest.

As Tonic, an 'association of club-men pretend to be absorbed
by love of country, fraternity, august philosophy, and the welfare
of the sovereign people. As Dominant, they are actuated simply
by the desire to grow rich, and to gain possession of the public
offices.

The contradiction of tonic and dominant constitutes the sub-
versive group, which is the common spring in civilised mechanism.
1 he four jgrou^s are ordinarily subversive^ and almost never
harmonious, or impelled by passions which are at once dominant
and tonic. — (U. U., iii., 341.)

Harmonious or regular groups, those whose dominant is
consonant to their tonic, ought to fulfil the folio wing^^ three_
conditions : j

ist. Spontaneous association without compulsory ties, and with !
no obligations beyond those of decorum.

2nd. Ardent and blind passion for a branch of industry or kind !
of pleasure common to all the members. [

3rd. Boundless devotion to the interests of the group;

158 Selections front the Works of Fourier

inclination to make sacrifices for the maintenance of the common
passion.

his devotion ought to predominate even in the group of the
family : alone among the four, it possesses the vice of immuta-
bility of material ties. This tie, formed forcibly by blood, will, in
Harmony, have to be restored by affection to spontaneity ; to be
passionate among kindred by blood as it is among associates by
choice (jadoptifs),'^ — (U. U., iii., 341.) .

Let us first devote a page to the elementary ideasjif/the main-

^^ling of Association, the series of groups or passional serie s, / It

is a union of different groups, each of which works in some

SPECIES of a passionate genus., ^^wenty groups, cultivating

I twenty kinds of roses, form a series of Rosists as to genus, and

. tohite-rosists, yellow-rosists, moss-rosists, as to species. Such is the

; sole lever employed in Association. — (U. U., i., 142.)

In every numerous association, the workers must he classed into
groups homogeneous in tastes, and these groups affiliated in an
ascending and descending Series, in order that the inclinations of
each individual may he developed, and their emulation aroused hy a
methodical opposition of contrasts;

Em/ulation, industrial improvement, and, consequently, profits,
increase in proportion to the exactitude with which the shades of
inclination are graded, and formed into groups which compose a
x^^S^es. — (U. U., iii., 509.)

1 Our legislators wisli-to subordinate the social system to the last of the four

groups, that o f thQ f^ramily, which God has almost entirely excluded from

Tinfluence in social Harmony, because it is a group with a material or forced

^bond of union, not one of free association, passional, dissoluble at pleasure.

îFwas befitting people who, in all their calculations, are in contradiction

with nature, to take as the pivot of the social mechanism that one of the four

f roups which ought to have the least influence, since it lacks freedom /in
[armony, accordingly, it has no active function except when it is absorbed by
tthe other three and acts in their spirit.
Duplicity, being engendered by all constraint, is likely to prevail in propor- ,
tipn to the influence of the family group, which is neither free nor dissoluble^
there is nothing, accordingly, more false than the two societies, the civilised
and the patriarchial, in which this group is dominant. Barbarous society,
more sanguinary, more oppressive than ours, is, nevertheless, less false, being
less influenced by the Family group, one of the greatest germs of duplicity in
the domain of action. By reason of its indissoluble bond, it is incongruoui
with the spirit of God, who wishes to govern solely by attractionj o r liberty of
ties and motives. — (Q. M., 115.)

Series and Groups 159

A passionate series is a union of different groups graded in an
ascending and a descending order, passionally joined together by
identity of taste for some form of activity, such as the cultivation
of a fruit, and appropriating a special group to each variety of
labour comprehended in the object to which it is devoted. /If it
cultivates hyacinths or potatoes, it must form as many groups as
there are varieties of hyacinths capable of being cultivated upon
its land, and so likewise of the varieties of potatoes.

These dispositions must be regulated by attraction ; each group
must be composed only of such members as take part passionally, {
without having recourse to the mediums of necessity, morality,
reason, duty, and compulsion. — (N. M., 52.) -4

There is nothing less fraternal and less equal than the groups \
of a passionate series. In order to balance it properly, it must
gather together and combine extremes in fortune, in intelligence
in character, etc. ysuch as the millionaire and the man without
means^ fiery and placid natures, the learned man and the
ignoramus, old age and youth ; this mixture lacks in nothing
more than in equality. -^=n

Another condition is that the groups be in irreconcilable \ \
rivalry ; that they criticise without mercy the minutest details of '
each other's work ; that their pretensions be incompatible and in
every way distinct, without the slightest fraternity \ that, on the
contrary, they organise scissions, jealousies, and intrigues of every
description. Such a régime will be as far removed from fraternity
as it is from equality i/and nevertheless it is this mechanism
which will give birth to super-composite liberty/whTch is jnJ^otah
oppositio n to philo sophic d octrine s : 1 they enjoin a contempt for
perfidious riches and encouragement of arbitrary traffic or free

i

' We must not persuade ourselves that in Harmony mankind are brothers [ /
and friends. It would be robbing life of its salt to cause the shades of opinion,
contradictions, antipathies even, to disappear from it. /But it must be observed
that in the play of the série» these disagreements ojlerate only as regards the
contact of group with group, and not ot individual wiih individual. /It is of
little consequence that the groups be irreconcilable, provided there exist bonds
of connection between their respective individuals. / . . The more a series is
subject to internal discord, the greater the prodigies it performs for external
concord. — {Phalange^ vol. published in 1850, p. 136.) _^

i6o Selections from the Works of Fourier

falsehood. The associative order, or super-composite liberty,
requires, on the contrary, love of riches and of boundless luxury,
the extirpation of commercial falsehood, and a guarantee of truth
in all transactions.

The philosophic or civilised state leads to riches by the practice
of falsehood, and to ruin by the practice of truth ; the associative
state leads to riches by the practice of truth, and to ruin by resort
to falsehood.

Philosophy desires in the domestic and the industrial régime
the smallest body possible, limited to one man and one woman ;
the associative order desires in the domestic régime the greatest
body possible, comprising about 1,500 persons, who, in place.^
conjugal indifference, the monotonies of civilisation, arxd repjabljcao.
fraternity, will be actuatecj byj

Jealous intrigues and contrasting rivalries, according to the
laws of the tenth passion, called Cahalist or dissident ;
; Frequent and habitual change of occupation, according to the
laws of the eleventh passion, called Papillonne or alternant ;

Industrial ardour, general enthusiasm, according to thç laws
of the twelfth passion, called Composite or coincident. — (U. U.,
ii., 161.)

If the scale of tastes is properly constituted, each group is at
odds with those contiguous to it ; consider the series of thirteen
groups,
r A B C D e/ G A Î J L M N.

The group G is very discordant with / and A, whose tastes it
accounts very defective; it is in semi-discord with the sub-
contiguous groups e, i ; it only begins to have affinity with D J, •
C L, B M, which become sympathetic at the third, the fourth,
the fifth remove, etc. ; but the neighbouring groups of the scale
are antipathetic industrially, jealous, rivals for fame. It is the
counterpart of musical relations : a tone does not harmonise with
those contiguous to it.

It is by such means alone that those sublime harmonies can be
called forth, described under the name of unions {ralliements)^
and whose characteristic is to absorb egoism and individual dur

I

Series and Groups i6l

cords in the dccords of the masses ; a characteristic whose special
uses in the associative régime I have frequently explained. —
(U. U., iv., 462.)

In order to attain passional success, or the mechanism of the
series, we must bring a^reat number of series into play^ at the
least 50 or 60, and at the most 500 ; then s horten their sessions^
so that every member may figure in a larjge number of series,
ç^attend~5o oir 60 of them) if possible, Dove-tailing (engrener)
them one with the other ; that is the condition sine qua non.

In order to fulfil it, numbers must be taken into account. If
a certain task requires 50 hours of a gardener's work, detail 50
men to do it ; they will only have work for an hour, and each of
them will be able, in the course of 50 hours, to engage in 50
occupations instead of one. jt is upon this linking or variety of
occupations, that is grounded the entire fabric of the passional.^
series andjtuproperties of passional harmony ; is there anything
to inspire dread in this doctrine ? ItJsJhe doctrine of pleasure.
— (U. U., i., 143)

XbisjthePj, is that doctrine of iseriea» pronounced so dreadful
by some alarmists. It is limited to observing how three passions .
dtexive profit from the harmonies^ and the discords of a score oi- .
,g2ôliPS* Three thousand years have been employed in seeking
the art of annihilating discords, and making us all brothers ;
could not three hours be devoted to the art of ^utilising these .\
discords, since it is demonstrated that they cannot be destroyed ?
QGod would not have created them, had he not judged them
necessary : they are the aliment of the tenth passion.^(U. U.

i., 151-)

Every innocent mania is admitted to the rank of laudable and \

harmonious impulses, provided that its devotees can gather to- \

gether the nucleus of a series, consisting of at least nine persons, /

and arranged in a regular group as above. f

No matter how comical a fancy may be, it is breveted a useful ]

and respectable passion, if it can offer this feature of corporative /

union. It has a right to a standard in its reunions, a right to

outward insignia for its members, and a place in the ceremonials \

1. J

1 62 Selections from the Works of Fourier

of a certain degree, province, or region, if it may not figure in
those of the Phalanx. Thus God knows how to attain the goal
of unity by the double road —

Of the infinitely small as well as the infinitely great ;

Of the infinitely ridicrdotis as well as the infinitely charming, —
(U. U., ii., 346-349-)

CHAPTER XIV

ATTRACTIVE LABOUR

In the civilised mechanism we find everywhere composite un-
happiness instead of composite charm. Let us judge of it by the "1
case of labour. It is, says the Scripture very justly, a punishment \

of man : Adam and his issue are condemned to earn their bread {

p . — ■" )

b]^he sweat of their brow. That, already, is an affliction ; but ^
this labour, this ungrateful labour upon which depends the earning
of our miserable bread, we cannot even get it ! a labourer lacks
the labour upon which his maintenance depends, — he asks in
vain for a tribulation! He suffers a second, that of obtaining a
work at^ times whose fruit is his master's and not his, m. of being j .\
employed in dutips to which he is entirely unaccustomed. . . .
The civilised labourer suffers a third affliction through the maladies

lie5 (

with which he is generally stricken by the excess of labour
^anded by his .master. . . . He suffers a fifth afflictioiif that of I
being despised and treated as a beggar because he lacks those /
necessaries which he consents to purchase by the anguish of
repugnant labour. He suffers, finally, a sixth afflicJtion, in that
he.will obtain neither advancement^nor sufficient wages, and that
to the vexation of present suffering is added the perspective of
future suffering, and of being sent to the gallows should he demand
that labour which he may lack to-morrow. — (Man., 208.)

Labour, nevertheless, forms the delight of various çreatui:es, ^
such as beavers, bees, wasps, ants, which are entirely at liberty to
prefer inertia : but God hasjjrovided them with a social mechanism
which attracts to industry, and causes happiness to be found in
industry. Why should he not have accorded us the same favour
as these animals? What a difference between their industrial

f

164 Selections from the Works of Fourier

condition and ours ! A Russian, an Algerian, work from fear of
the lash or the bastinado; an Englishman, a Frenchman, from
fear of the famine which stalks close to his poor household ; the
Greeks and the Romans, whose freedom has been vaunted to us,
worked as slaves, and from fear of punishment, like the negroes
in the colonies to-day. — (U. U., ii., 249.)

Associative labour, in order to exert a strong attraction upon
people, will have to differ in every particular from the repulsive
conditions which render it so odious in the existing state of things,^
It is necessary, in order that it become attractive, that associative
labour fulfil the following seven conditions :
■ I® That every labourer be a partner, remunerated by dividends
and not by wages.

2° That every one, man, woman, or child, be remunerated in
proportion to the three faculties, capital^ labour , and talent,

3^ That the industrial sessions be varied about eight times a
day, it being impossible to sustain enthusiasm longer than an
hour and a half or two hours in the exercise of agricultural or
manufacturing labour.

4^ That they be carried on by bands of friends, united
spontaneously, interested and stimulated by very active rivalries.

5^ That the workshops and husbandry offer the labourer
the allurements of elegance and cleanliness.

6^ That the division of labour be carried to the last degree, so
that each sex and age may devote itself to duties that are suited
to it.

7*^ That in this distribution, each one, man, woman, or child, be
in full enjoyment of the right to labour or the right to engage in
such branch of labour as they may please to select, provided they
give proof of integrity and ability.

X ^ Finally, that, in this new order, people possess a guarantee
of well-being, of a minimum sufficient for the present and the future,
and that this guarantee free them from all uneasiness concerning
themselves and their families.

1 The sign X, in the language of Fourier, serves to designate that which is
^* pivotal," that is to say, fundamental, in enumeration.

Attractive Labour 165

We find all these properties combined in the associative
mechanism, whose discovery I make public. — (U. U., ii., 15.)

We know what effect association a nd ow nership have upon one
engaged in industrial occupations. /He appears sluggish while 1
working for wages, for others' benefit i^' but the moment \
commercial association has inoculated him with the spirit of /
ownership and participation, he becomes a prodigy of diligence, .
and they say of him : " He is not the same man ; one cannot
recognise kim,''^ Why? Because _he has become a composa je.
owner. His emulation is so much the more valuable in that he

works for a whole body of associates and not himself alone, as is
the case with the small cultivator, so highly lauded by morality,
and who is in reality nothing but an egoist : — poor morality, which
in all things has an unlucky hand, can praise only the sources of
vice. It was natural enough that it should end by praising free
trade or the rule of falsehood.

The emulative influence of association, noticeable even under
existing conditions, will be powerful in a very different way in
Harmony, where it will be sustained by all the noblest sentiments,
as will be seen further on. But in order to humour the pre-
dominant spirit of the civilised, simplism {simplisms), or the
passion for simple motives, I shall, in this prelude, consider the
emulation of the poor only in its relation to pecuniary interest,
without speaking of noble motives, such as friendship, glory,
patriotism, etc., which enter into every part of the industrial
mechanism of the passional series.

He ought to love work, say our sages : yes ! but how go about
it? What is lovable about it in civilisation for nine-tenths of
mankind, who reap only weariness from it and no benefits?
Consequently, it is generally shunned by the rich, who engage
only in the lucrative and agreeable side of it, in direction. How
cause it to be liked by the poor, when it cannot be rendered
pleasant to the rich ? — (U. U., iii., 519.)

In order to attain happiness, it is necessary to introduce it into I \
the labours which engage the greater part of our lives, y^^iïiê'îs a j
long torment to one who pursues occupations without attraction. '

i66 Selections from the Works of Fourier

Morality teaches us to love work : let it know, then, how to render
work lovable, and, first of all, let it introduce luxury into hus-
bandry and the workshop. If the arrangements are poor, repulsive,
how arouse industrial attraction ?

In wor kt j^. in pleasure^ variety is evidently the desire of nature. _
Any enjoyment prolonged, without interruption, beyond two hours,
conduces to satiety, to abuse, blunts our faculties, and exhausts
pleasure. A repast of four hours will not pass off without excess ;
an opera of four hours will end by cloying the spectator. Periodi-
cal variety is a necessity of the body and of the soul, a necessity in
all nature ; even the soil requires alteration of seeds, and seed
alteration of soil. The stomach will soon reject the best dish if
it be offered every day, and the soul will be blunted in the exercise
of any virtue if it be not relieved by some other virtue.

If there is need of variety in pleasure after indulging in it for
two hours, so much the more does labour require this diversity,
which is continual in the associative state, and is guaranteed to
the poor as well as the rich. — (U. U., i., 147.)

The chief source of light-heartedness among Harmonians is the
frequent change of sessions. Life is a perpetual torment to our
workmen, who are obliged to spend twelve, and frequently fifteen,
consecutive hours in some tedious labour. Even ministers are
not exempt ; we find some of them complain of having passed an
entire day in the stupefying task of affixing signatures to thousands
of official vouchers. Such wearisome duties are unknown in the
associative order ; the Harmonians, who devote an hour, an hour
and a half, or at most two hours, to the different sessions, and
who, in these short sessions, are sustained by cabalistic impulses
and by friendly union with selected associates, cannot fail to bring
and to find cheerfulness everywhere.

Let us delineate this variation by a table exhibiting a day of
two Harmonians, one poor and one rich.

Attractive Labour 167

LuGAs' Day in the Month of June.

Hours.

At 3J rising, getting ready.

At 4 attendance at a stable group.

At 5 at a gardeners' group.

At 7 hreakfast.

At 7 J at the reapers' group.

At 9J at the vegetable-growers' group under

cover.

At 1 1 at the stable series.

At I Dinner.

At 2 at the rural series.

At 4 at a manufacturing group.

At 6 at the watering series.

At 8 at 'Change.

At 2>\ Supper,

At 9 at resorts of amusement.

At 10 bed-time,

I shall delineate, framed in between five meals, the day of a
rich man, practising more varied occupations than the one above, ^
who is one of the villagers enrolled in the beginning.

Mondor's Day in Summer.

Hours. Sleep from 10 J in the evening to 3 o'clock in the

morning,
rising, getting ready,
court of public levee, news of the night,
the délite, first meal, followed by the industrial

parade,
attendance at the hunting group.

at the fishing group.

At

3h

At

4

At

4

At

5l

At

7

1 68 Selections from the Works of Fourier

Hours.

At 8 hreahfast, newspapers.

At 9 attendance at an agricultural group under cover.

At I G at mass.

At loj at the pheasantry group.

At iij at the library.

At I Dinner.

At 2 J at the group of cold green-houses.

At 4 at the group of exotic plants.

At 5 at the group of fish-ponds.

At 6 luncheon in the fields.

At 6 J at the group of merinoes.

At 8 at 'Change.

At 9 Supper, fifth repast.

At 9 J court of the arts, ball, theatre, receptions.

At loi bed-time.

y We find in the table but a brief place allowed for sleep : the
Harmonians will sleep very little ; perfected hygiene, coupled with
variety of employments, will accustom them not to get fatigued
in their labours ; their bodies will not be exhausted in the course
of the day, will need but a small amount of sleep, and will
accustom themselves to it from childhood by an abundance of
pleasures for which the day cannot be sufficiently long.

In such an order, attraction, by reason of its intensity, requires
some easing, some calm sessions, such as that of the library,
eighth in the above table. The civilised order institutes recrea-
tions as a relaxation from annoying labour ; the associative order
provides only for a slackening of pleasure.^ — (N. M., 67, dZ,)

^ Upon beholding this associative fairyland, these harmonies, these prodigies,
this sea of delights, created simply by attraction or divine impulse, we shall
see aroused a frenzy of enthusiasm for God, author of so beautiful an order j
and perfectible, infamous civilisation, will be loaded with universal malediction.
Its political and moral libraries will be spat upon, torn up in the first moment
of anger, and delivered over to the meanest uses, until they are reprinted with
a critical commentary, facing the text, to make it the enduring laughing-stock
of the human race. — (N. M., 287.)

Attractive Labour 169

The radical evil of our industrial system is the employment of | .
the labourer in a single occupation, which runs the risk of coming I 6^
to a stand-still. The fifty thousand workmen of Lyons who )
are beggars to-day (besides fifty thousand women and children),
would be scattered over two or three hundred phalanxes, which
would make silk their principal article of manufacture, and which
would not be thrown out by a year or two of stagnation in that
branch of industry. If at the end of that time their factory should
fail completely, they would start one of a different kind, without
having stopped work, without ever making their daily subsistence
dependent upon a continuation or suspension of outside orders.
— (F. I. [d. s.].)

In a progressive series all the groups acquire so much the more
skill in that their work is greatly subdivided, and that every
member engages only in the kind in which he professes to excel.
The heads of the Series, spurred on to study by rivalry, bring to
their work the knowledge of a student of the first rank. The
subordinates are inspired with an ardour which. laughs at all
plîstaçles, and with a fanaticismjor the maintenance pf the honour, _
of the Series against rival districts. In the heat of action they
accomplish what seems humanly impossible, like the French
grenadiers who scaled the rocks of Mahon, and who, upon the
day following, were unable, in cold blood, to clamber up the
rock which they had assailed under the fire of the enemy. Such
are the progressive Series in their work ; .gxexy-ubstacle- vanishes 7
before the ifi^se ^ride which dominates them ; they would-r*
^row^ angry at tHîl vvunl impossible, and the most daunting,
kinds of labour, such as managing the soil, are to^Jhem Jtbe^
liglitest of sports. If we could to-day behold an organised
district, behold at early dawn thirty industrial groups issue in state
from the palace of the Phalanx, and spread themselves over the
fields and the workshops, waving their banners with cries of triumph
and impatience, we should think we were gazing at bands of
madmen intent upon putting the neighbouring districts to fire
and sword. Such will be the athletes who will take the place of

170 Selections from the Works of Fourier

our mercenary and languid workmen, and who will succeed in
making ambrosia and nectar grow upon a soil which yields only
briers and tares to the feeble hands of the civilised. — (Q. M.,
244.)

CHAPTER XV

LITTLE HORDES (lES PETITES HORDES)

Fresh souls, especially those of the young, possess an energy in
the exercise of patriotic virtues which is not found in people of
the world, who are ready to waver and tack about to obtain a
sinecure.

In view of this, it is at once evident that the fathers are inferior
to the children in the exercise of the virtues called patriotic.

Association knows how to profit by this inclination of youth,
to devotion to society; it knows how to employ childhood in
positions where the fathers would be remiss ; among others, in
positions involving repugnant labour.

This repugnance is to-day overcome by the inducement of
money; but it will be overcome by attraction, in an order of
things in which pleasure will be the prime mover in the social l
mechanism.

The régime of attraction would fail utterly, unless it succeeded
in attaching powerful baits to repellent kinds of labour, which
can only be carried on in civilisation by the inducement of
wages. — (U. U., iv., 138.)

Some mercantile champion will object, that if Harmony is so
immensely rich, as shown by the tables given of the thirty-fold
relative increase, it could appropriate a large amount to the
remuneration of repugnant labour. Such will be the case in
emasculated (partial) association, which cannot develop the great
springs of attraction ; but in complete Harmony not a farthing
will be appropriated to the payment of unclean labour : it would
be subversive of the entire mechanism of high attraction, which

172 Selections front the Works of Fourier

jj should conquer the very strongest feelings of repugnance by

Xi^ei^it de corps. — (U. U., iii., 531.)
fj Why is childhood selected for the chief rôle in the mechanism

//of general amity? It is because children, among the affective

vj^ passions, are devoted to honour and friendship. Neither love
nor the family-feeling divert them from those sentiments : it is
among them, therefore, that we ought to find friendship in all its
purity, and to give it the noblest spur, that of social unitary
charity, preventing, thereby, the debasement of the lower classes,
through the encroachment of abject duties, and maintaining amity
between the rich and the poor.

In the different chapters treating of the Series, I have demon-
strated that if there were a single kind of labour which was
despised, considered ignoble and degrading for the class that
engaged in it, the inferior duties would soon sink into disrepute
in every branch of industry, in the stables, the kitchen, rooms,
workshops, etc. : the debasement would spread from one sort of
labour to another ; the contempt for labour would be gradually
' revived, and the result be that, as in civilisation, those people

/ would be termed comme il faut who do nothing, are good for
nothing. Then the time would come when this wealthy class
would no longer take any part in the industrial Series, and would
disdain to entertain any social relations with the classes of the
poor.

It is the part of childhood to preserve the social body from
this evil, undertaking as a body all duties held in disdain, by
labouring for a mass and not for an individual (except attending
the sick, which can only be entrusted to a body of mature persons,
that of the infirmaries ; however, the Little Hordes will take part
by doing the dirty work).

It is to that age only we can turn to have the repugnant part

' , of labour performed, by means of indirect attraction.

/ The love of dirt which prevails in children is only an unculti-
vated germ, like wild fruit ; it must be refined by applying to it
two forces — that of the unitary religious spirit and that of corpor-
ative honour. Supported by these two impulses, repugnant

Little Hordes {Les Petites Hordes^ I73

occupations will become games, having indirect composite
attraction. This condition, set forth in the preceding chapter, is
found to be satisfied by the two allurements I have just indicated.

For a long time I committed the error of censuring this
comical peculiarity of children, and of endeavouring to have it
disappear in the mechanism of the passionate Series ; that was
acting like a Titan, who wishes to change the work of God. I
achieved no success until I adopted the attitude of planning in
agreement with attraction ; seeking to utilise the inclinations of
childhood, such as Nature has created them. This calculation
gave me the corporation which I have just described ; it practises
corporatively the only branch of charity remaining in Harmony ;
there are no longer any poor to be succoured, any captives to be
ransomed and delivered from prison ; there is nothing, therefore,
left for children but to take up the domain of unclean labour, — ,
charity of high statesmanship, since it preserves from contempt /
the lowest industrial classes, and in the end the intermediate \
classes. I^ establishes, thus, the fraternity dreamed of by the /
philosophers, the spontaneous drawing together of all classes. . I

If, in such an order, the masses are refined, upright, above \
want, the great can no longer entertain a feeling of mistrust or of
contempt for them. A friendly enthusiasm, therefore, is aroused /
in all the industrial groups, where the masses necessarily mingle \
with the great. Thus the dream is realised, which wishes to [
make all mankind a family of brothers. ^

This precious union would cease the moment one class of /
labour were held in disdain, disparaged : for instance, if there /
were paid boot-blacks in Harmony, those children, and coEhj
sequently their parents, would be counted an inferior class, not
admissible in a committee of the Series, in which the rich are
members.

If that kind of service is accounted ignoble, the Little Hordes
take charge of it and ennoble it. For the rest, it is rarely
necessary to clean one's shoes in Harmony, thanks to the covered
ways.

They are always up and about at 3 o'clock in the morning,

174 Selections from the Works of Fourier

cleaning the stables, attending to the animals, working in the
slaughter-houses, where they are on the watch to see that no
unnecessary suffering be ever inflicted upon the animals put to
death. ^ — (U. U., iv., 159, 163.)

The Little Hordes have, as one of their duties, the incidental
repairing of the highways, that is, the daily maintenance of the
surface-roads. The highways, in Harmony, are regarded as
salons of unity ; and, consequently, the Little Hordes, by virtue
of their unitary charity, watch over the cleanliness and the
ornamentation of the roadways.

It is to the amour propre of the Little Hordes that Harmony
will be beholden for having, the world over, highways more
sumptuous than the walks of our flower-gardens. They will be
lined with trees and shrubs, even flowers, and watered up to the
side-walk.

If a post-route sustain the slightest damage, the alarm is sounded
instantly, and a tocsin of the tower of order apprises the Argot,
who proceeds, by the light of torches if necessary, to make pro-
visional repairs, and to hoist an accident-signal over the place,
for fear that the damage may not be noticed by some travellers,
and give rise to an accusation against the canton of having bad
*^ sacripants,^^ It would likewise be accused of having bad
" chenapans,^^ ^ if a vicious reptile, serpent or viper, were dis-
covered, or a croaking of frogs heard, in proximity to the high-
roads.

In spite of their labour being the most difficult, through lack of
direct attraction, the Little Hordes receive the lowest remuneration
of all the Series. They would not accept anything if it were " be-
coming" in association toacceptnoshare; they take only the smallest;
that does not, however, prevent any of their members from obtain-
ing the largest shares in other occupations : but in virtue of their

' See chapter, Des Animaux,

2 In the vocabulary of Fourier, each one of the Little Hordes has a nom dt
guerre^ according with the species of labour to which it devotes itself, and
among these names there figure those of *^ sacripants ^^ and ^^chenapansJ'-^
Ch. G.

Little Hordes {Les Petites Hordes) 175

being philanthropic unitary bodies, they have as their law the
indirect contempt of riches, and devotion to repugnant labour,
which they perform as a point of honour. — (U. U., iv., 149,

I have already remarked that indications of charitable devotion
to abject duties are found even among monarchs, and that on
Holy Thursday sovereigns are seen washing the feet of a dozen
poor people, — a duty by which the monarch thinks himself
honoured, on account of the abjectness of the service. Now,
when there shall be a corporation of high degree, devoted to the
exercise of all the abject duties, none of these will in reality be
such ; without this condition, no binding together of the rich
class and the poor.

If it is demonstrated that the religious spirit engenders a de- 1
votion to general charity, such as is found among the Redemptorist
Fathers and other societies, all that need be done is to make
use of this inclination, in accordance with the exigencies of the ]
new order ; and even should the corporation of the Little Hordes
not appear to be the most efficacious arrangement, it would be
none the less certain that the principle of industrial charity , only T
alloyed mth the religious spirit, exists among us ; and if I have ^
erred in the application, the use, the customs and laws of the
body of unitary charity, the critics ought to exert themselves to
make better use of an impulse whose existence they cannot dispute;
to invent a sect better able to do away with the obstacle of
•industrial disgust for unclean labour.

However, the Harmon ians, more judicious than we in the
theory and the practice of charity, will not apply that virtue to
' useless ceremonies, such as washing the feet of the poor, which
they could very well do themselves, or employing a confessor
with an income of 50,000 francs to detach a criminal from the
gallows. When there shall no longer exist either beggars or people
to be hanged, they can no longer serve for calculations of osten-
tatious charity. All those practices, laudable as to intention and
as examples, are only the abortions of a charitable policy. It
ought to be applied to effect the drawing together of the classes

176 Selections from the Works of Fourier

at the extremes, whom nothing can conciliate in civilisation,
because that order is a failure.^ — (U. U., iv., 393, 394.)

1 For the exercise of this ** industrial charity,'* Fourier had recourse also to
the creation of a body of vestals, a kind of sisters of charity. The following
are his principal passages upon the subject.

The Romans, aside from their cruelty towards seduced vestîjs, bad a
happy idea in making these priestesses an object of popular idolatry, a class
intermediate between man and divinity. The Harmonians likewise confide to
them the keeping of the sacred fire y not of a material fire, object of a vain
superstition, but of a fire really sacred, that of the manners, loyal and generous,
of industrial Attraction. — (N. M., 228.)

If the vestîils occupy the first rank, it is because in young girls of sixteen to
eighteen years nothing commands higher esteem then a virginity beyond doubt,
a genuine, unvarnished decorum, an ardent devotion to usefiil and charitable
duties, an active emulation in worthy studies and in the fine arts. All these
qualities combined, in a society of about thirty young girls in every phalanx,
must gain unreserved public favour. Accordingly, the vestals, in Harmony,
are an object of general idolatry, even for children, for they are the allies of
the Little Hordes, and co-operators in their charitable labours, excepting in
those of an unclean nature.

They take part as a body, and in conjunction vdth the Little Hordes, in all
the urgent duties for which the Administration, in cases of danger like that of
an impending storm, causes an alarm to be sounded for those who can quit
their labours. Everywhere where the public interest is in danger, the body of
Vestals and the Argot are the first on the spot.

They receive, by way of associative remuneration, only half of the mediocre
dividend allotted to the Argot, whose duties are both more numerous and
more arduous, and with whom they are associates in charity in the services
required in the morning.

Possessing so many titles to the favour of youth and mature age, it is not
astonishing that they should be the object of a semi-religious worship.

The Harmonians will not be guilty of the inconsistency of creating vestals of
one sex and not of the other ; that would be imitating the contradiction in our
customs, which prescribes chastity to the girls and fornication to the boys.
This is to provoke on the one hand what is prohibited on the other, — a
duplicity worthy of civilisation. — (U. U., iv., 235, 236.)

CHAPTER XVI

DOMESTIC SERVICE

Nothing is more opposed to concord than the existing condition
of the class of domestics and that of wage-earners./'' By reducing
these masses of the poor to a state bordering upon slavery, civilisa-
tion imposes, by reflex action, chains upon those who appear to
rule the others. Thus, the great do not dare to amuse themselves
openly during the years when the people are sufl'ering from want J
The rich are subject to individual as well as to collective servi-
tude. Many a man of wealth with us is frequently a slave to his
valets /^while the valet himself in Harmony enjoys perfect inde-
pendence, although the rich are served with a zeal and a devotion,
of which not even a shadow can be found in civilisation : let us
explain this Harmony.

No member in composite Harmony engages in individual
service; and, nevertheless, the poorest man has fifty pages con-;
stantly at his command. /This state of things, a statement of
which causes at first an outcry against its impossibility, as is the
case with every feature of the Serial mechanism, may be readily
understood. ,

In a Phalanx, domestic service, like every other function, is )
carried on by Series, which appropriate a group to each variety of
labour^'^T'hese Series, while engaged in service, bear the title of
pages {pages et pagesses). We give this title to those who serve
kings ; it ought, with much better reason, to be applied to those
who serve a Phalanx; for, indeed/it is serving God to serve the!
Phalanx collectively ; and it is thus that domestic service is re-'
garded in Harmony. If, as to-day, this primordial branch of

M

\

178 Selections from the Works of Fourier

industry were disparaged, passional equilibrium would become
an impossibility.

To this ideal ennoblement of service is added a real ennoble-
ment, by the suppression of individual dependence, which would
debase a man by subjecting him to another's caprices.

The industrial cabals of the gardens, the orchards, the opera,
workshops, etc., procuring a host of friends to each person, he is
sure of finding in every group of pages some who would serve
him with affection. The poor enjoy this advantage as well as the

rich ; and/the man without means finds a host of affectionate

\ attendants as ready to minister to him as to a prince, because it

\ is never the individual served that pays those who serve him. A

( page would be ignominiously discharged if it were known that he

! had secretly received a gratuity from those he had served. It is

■ the Phalanx which compensates the body of pages, with a dividend

taken from the two shares of labour and talent ; a dividend

which this Series distributes among its different members in

\ amounts proportioned to their proved ability and assiduity. ■''

Personal independence is therefore fully assured, since each
page is assigned to the service of the Phalanx, and not to that of
the individual, who is, for that reason, served with affection, — a
pleasure which even the rich cannot procure in civilisatior^for if
' you pay a valet generously in order to secure his attachment,
ambition will render him indifferent, ungrateful, and often
treacherous. This danger is unknown in Harmony, where each
one is assured of the friendship of the different pages, wh o selec t
his service by preference, with the liberty of leaving it in case of
a~cooling off, and without entering into any pecuniary arrangements
with him.

There is, therefore, nothing either mercenary or servile in
domestic service in Harmony, and a group of chambermaids is
like all the other groups, a free and honourable society which
receives a share of the gross product of the Phalanx, proportioned
to the importance of its work. — (U. U., iii., 526-530.)

r

CHAPTER XVII

INDUSTRIAL ARMIES

)

In conformity with the thesis of counter-swing of movement,
association should have the property of assembling productive
armies, as civilisation assembles destructive ones.

And, in opposition to the civilised order, which enlists its heroes
by putting chains around their necks, the associative order will
enlist theirs by the allurement of fetes and pleasures which are
unknown in the existing state of things, where an army of a
hundred thousand men knows no other collective pleasure but
that of destroying, burning, pillaging, and ravishing.

In spite of the jeremiads upon the penurious condition of the -
finances, every state commands immense masses of capital when
it wishes to gather and provision these destructive bodies. I have
heard a Russian engineer say, that at the siege of Rustchuk, in
1811, every bomb thrown into' that city cost Russia 400 francs,
on account of the expense of transportation. What an outlay for
the destruction of men and buildings ! What a fortunate change
would it be to an order of things which would assemble such
bodies for useful undertakings !

How is it that our constructors of Utopias have not dared to
dream of this one : an assemblage of 500,000 men employed in
construction instead of destruction I After all, the expenditure
would be much smaller for a productive army ; and, besides the
saving in slaughtered men, burnt cities, devastated fields, we
should have the saving of the cost of equipment, and the benefi
of the work accomplished.

It is for the lack of industrial armies that civilisation is unable!
to produce anything great, and Fails in all undertakings of any/

i8o Selections from the Works of Fourier

extent ; formerly it accomplished great things by employing hosts
of slaves who worked by dint of the lash and of torture. But
if works like the Pyramids and Lake Moeris must be drenched
with the tears of 500,000 unfortunates, they are monuments of
opprobrium, and not trophies of civilisation.

The greatness of Harmony consists as much in the vastness of
its undertakings as in the rapidity of their accomplishment, which
could not be obtained from a body of slaves and wage-earners,
all agreed in shirking labour. The Harmonians, for whom it is
transformed into a/e^c, a matter of pride, bring so much the greater
activity to bear upon it, in that the number of athletes facilitates
its progress. — (U. U., iii., 559, 562.)

They will execute works the mere thought of which would
freeze our mercenary souls with horror. For instance, the com-
bined order will undertake the conquest of the great desert of
^§Jiara^ they will attack it at various points by ten and twenty
millions of hands if necessary, and by dint of transporting earth,
cultivating the soil and planting trees every here and there, they
will succeed in rendering the land moist, the sand firm, and in
replacing the desert by fruitful regions. They will construct
canals navigable by vessels, where we cannot make even ditches
for irrigation, and great ships will sail not only across isthmuses
like those of Suez and Panama, 1 but even in the interior of con-
tinents, as from the Caspian Sea to the Sea of Azov, of Aral, the
Persian Gulf; they will navigate from Quebec to the five great
lakes ; finally, from the sea to all the great lakes whose length
equals a quarter of their distance to the sea. — (Q. M., 263.)

^ All narrow and obstructive isthmuses, like those of Panama, Parry,
Malacca, will be crossed in the eighth period by canals accommodating vessels
adapted to long ocean voyages, of 600 tons burden, and carrying 24 cannon ;
that is, canals having 20 feet of water. — (U. U., ii., 97.)

CHAPTER XVIII

DISTRIBUTION

We are approaching the most important problem of Harmony,
that of distribution, balanced and graduated in accordance with
the industrial faculties of labour, capital, and talent. The
social bond would be broken the very first year, if there were a
miscarriage in this particular, and if every one of the members,
man, woman, or child, were not convinced that they had received
a just share of the three kinds of dividends allotted to those
functions.

The civilised order is incapable of making a just distribution '
except in the case of capital, which is remunerated in proportion
to its investment ; that is a problem in arithmetic, and requiresj
no genius ; the Gordian knot of the social mechanism is the
rewarding each one for labour and talçntju That is the stumbling-
block which has dismayed all the ages and blocked investigation.

To evade. this__double problem of distribution, the Owen sect
bring s into play the community of goods, the giving over to the
v^le jbody of all profit outside of the revenue of the shares. This
is to acknowledge that it dares not confront the problem of
association. — (N. M., i66.)

It is through their impulses of cupidity that all the Harmonians
will be led to this even-handed justice.

Such is the triumph of that cupidity so maligned by the
moralists ; God would not have given us that passion, had he not
foreseen its use in the general equilibrium. I have already de-
monstrated that gluttony, equally proscribed by the philosophers,
becomes the path of wisdom and industrial concord in the
passionate Series. It will be seen that cupidity produces the

1 82 Selections from the Works of Fourier

same effect there, that it leads to distributive justice, and that,
in creating our passions, God did well all that he did, — (N. M.,

309-)

Xf, every. Harmonian devpjed. Jiixi^ .like. Afi civil isftd»JgL^
singLe calling ; if he were only a mason, only a carpenter, only a
gardener, each one would come to the distribu tive s essions with
the scheme i)fmaking^^^^^ of having the principal

share adjudged to the masons if he is a mason, to the carpenters
if he is a carpenter, etc. ; such would be the course of all the
civilised ; but_in .Harmony, where every one^ man or woman, is a
member of about forty Series, nobody is interested, in making one
of them prevail over the others; eg^cb^^oiie», even in his own
interest, is obliged to calculate in a manner the reverse of that of
the civilised, and )to vote in all directions for equity. _ Let us
demonstrate the fact under the aspect of interest and under that
of vainglory.

Alcippus is a member of 36 Series, which he divides into three
orders, A, B, C. In the 12 of the order A, he is an old member,
and is in the first rank, both as regards importance and claims to
emolument; in the 12 of the order C, he is a new member,
entitled to expect but a slender share; and in the 12 of the order
B, he occupies an intermediate position as to time and expectations.
These are the three classes of opposite interests, stimulating
Alcippus in three different directions, and compelling him,
through interest and through self-love, to decide in favour of
^rigorous justice. — (U. U., iv., 529.)

1° The greater the number of Series frequented, the greater is the
interest of the individual belonging to so many Series, not to
sacrifice them all to a single one, and to uphold the interests of
40 companies that he cherishes, against the pretensions of each
one of them.

2° The shorter and rarer the sessions, the greater facility does
the individual possess of enrolling himself in a large number of
Series, whose influence would cease to be balanced, if any of them,
by long and frequent meetings, should absorb the time and
solicitude of the members, and arouse an exclusive affection.

Distribution 183

This mechanism, as regards distribution, possesses the
inestimable properties : — -

Of absorbing individual cupidity in the collective interests of a
SerieSf and of absorbing the collective pretensions .of each Series in
the individual interests which each member has in a host of other /
Series,'^— {V, U., iv., 533, 534.) ^,,^

Each Series, being a Partner and not a Tenant of the'
Phalanx, receives a share not of the proceeds of its own labour, \
but of that of all the Series, and its compensation is proportioned |
to the rank it occupies in the table divided into three classes, j
necessity y utility^ pleasure, j

For instance, a certain Series which cultivates cereals does not
receive either a half, a third, or a fourth of the proceeds of the
grain that has been reaped : this grain enters into the mass of
the entire product sold or consumed, and if the Series which has
produced it is recognised as being of great importance in industry,
it is compensated by a share of the first order in its class.

1 Harmonic Medicine. In civilisation a physician's earnings are propor-
tioned to the number of sick he treats ; it suits him, therefore, to have much
sickness prevail and that the ailments should be protracted, particularly among
the wealthy class.

The opposite is the case in Harmony ; physicians are compensated by a
dividend of the general product of the Phalanx. The rate of this dividend is
conditional : it increases by one, two, three, four, six ten -thousandths, or de-
creases in like proportions, according to the collective and comparative state of
health of the whole Phalanx. The fewer the cases of sickness and death in
the course of a year, the larger will be the dividend allotted to the physicians.
Their services are estimated by the results, and by comparison with the
sanitary statistics of phalanxes having the same climatic conditions.

The interest of Harmoiiian doctors is the same as that of life-insurance men ;
they are interested in preventing and not in treating disease ; accordingly
they keep active watch that nothing should endanger the health of any class,
that the Phalanx should contain fine-looking specimens of old age, and hearty,
robust children, and that mortality should be reduced to a minimum.

Dentists calculate in a like manner in regard to teeth, — the less they have
to do with them, the greater their emolument ; accordingly, they take
assiduous care of the teeth of child and parent.

In brief, it is to the interest of men in these professions that everyone be
provided with a good appetite, a good stomach, a good set of teeth ; if, as
with us, they were in the position of having to calculate upon individual ill-
ness, their work would be characterised by duplicity of action, opposition of
individual to collective interest, as in the civilised mechanism, which is a
universal warfare of individuals against the mass. And our political sciences
have the hardihood to talk of unity of action ! — (N. M., 171, 172.)

Distribution 185

fastening the social bond. Such is the Series of the Little
Hordes, without which the mechanism of the higher Harmony
would be destroyed, and the union through friendship be im-
possible. It is first, therefore, by direct title, or contribution to
unity, as well as by the two other basic titles.

2^ Inverse title ; Auovijt of attraction. The greater the {
attraction aroused by any species of labour, the smaller is its
pecuniary value : according to this, it would seem that the opera
and orchards should be two series belonging to the third class, or
the class of pleasure. The Series of orchards is relegated to that
rank because it has only an inverse title, contributing no more to
unity than any other branch of agricultural labour. But the
Series of the opera contributes specially to unity by its property
of fitting the child for all material harmonies : this Series, therefore,
has a double title to be regarded valuable, direct and inverse, and
takes position in the first ranks of the category of necessity.

^^ Mixed title; Repugnant obstacles, such as the work of
miners, or attendants upon the sick and wet-nurses. An obstacle
purely industrial is often a source of amusement ; it is a matter of
sport for athletes ; but one cannot make a sport of repugnance
which fatigues the senses, such as the cleaning of a sewer, de-
scending into a mine : you can overcome it by a point of honour,
as is done by the Little Hordes and sick-nurses ; it is none the
less an offence to the senses ; while simple fatigue without disgust,
like that of a man who climbs pear-trees and cherry-trees, may
become mere child's-play and a real pleasure. Hence it is that
the associative order regards only repugnant fatigue as meritorious.

It is by properly combining the above three rules that we
succeed in classifying justly and exactly the ranks of each Series,
as regards their claims upon the pecuniary dividend, whose dis-
tribution is not a purely arithmetical task. — (U. U., iv., 519, 525.)

Besides, a slight inaccuracy in valuation would not be prejudicial
to anyone; for we know that if a person receives more in one
Series, less in another, he comes out about even, and in that case
there is no real injury.

Let us add that if an injury were involuntarily inflicted upon a

^^/

1 86 Selections from the Works of Fourier

/Series, a result which might occur without intention, and as a
/ consequence of some general error, it would very soon be detected
I by the diminution of attraction ; desertion and indifference would
\ ensue : whence it would be decided to augment the attraction of
the Series, either by modifying its assortment of characters, or
passional key-board, or by granting it a provisional indemnity
from the reserve-fund, or by raising it in " degree " at the distribu-
tion of the ensuing year. Thus the involuntary errors which might
be committed would be rectified as soon as they were perceived.
Lack of experience and defects in attraction would occasion a
good many such errors in the beginning j but in less than three
years, there will have been obtained experimental and positive
data of all the minute details of equilibrium, and the work of
distribution will be merely a familiar routine after the third year.
— (U. U., iv., 532.)

To these numerous advantages there is added one that is even
more unknown in the existing state, and which our famous
friends of commerce and circulation could never have been able
to compass ; it is the faculty of converting all immovable effects
into movable, circulating ones, realisable at will.

Every Phalanx buys up shares, on demand, at the rate of the
last appraisement, adding interest for the portion of the year which
has elapsed : thus a man, though he possessed a hundred millions,
can in an instant realise his entire fortune, without the loss of a
farthing, or fees for exchange, or charges for sale. He receives,
besides, a part of the interest or current dividend of the year, just
as he would receive it upon a negotiable bond on which the
interest is reckoned by the day.

Shares constitute a value much more real than do to-day landed
property and specie ; for specie in civilisation may be stolen, and
does not in itself yield anything unless it is invested. A land
share, in Harmony, yields a great deal without investment or risk ;
it cannot be lost either through theft, or misplacement, or fire;
its ownership being certified in three registers deposited in two
main-buildings of the Phalanx, and in one belonging to some Con-
gress of the vicinity. Transfers not being valid unless with the

Distribution 187

consent of the registered owner, he runs no risk through theft,
mislaying, fire, even through earthquake ; for an earthquake could
never swallow the registers bestowed in different places, nor the
copy which is deposited in the provincial Congress.

Capital, therefore, is perfectly mobile in this new order, although "A
invested in landed property, which runs no risk of being compro- \
mised by revolution or fraud, and which can in an instant be
realised, without incurring any expense. Henoe it is that the rôles I
of proprietor and of capitalist became synonymous in Harmony.

This mobility of capital is the point where civilised economists
fail completely. In order to maintain capital mobile to-day, one
runs so many risks that the English deposit with a banker,
obtaining no interest and yet incurring the danger of bankruptcy,
for the sole advantage of drawing their funds at pleasure. One
may indeed keep one's capital mobile, in banks and commercial
houses, by keeping one's self informed daily of the solvency of
debtors ; but if we relax ever so little in our inquiries, we are
implicated in failures, into which even the most cunning are
surprised.

A Phalanx can never in any case become bankrupt, carry away
its land, its palace, its workshops, its flocks. The district is, by
its solidarity, an insurer against the ravages of the elements, which
will be greatly reduced after five or six years of Harmony, that
order causing an active climatic restoration. Fires will, likewise,
become a matter of very inconsiderable consequence, owing to the
■ excellent arrangements of this new domestic order.

A ward never incurs the risk of losing his capital, or of being
wronged as regards management or income ; the administration is
the same for him as it is for all the shareholders; if he has
received shares in the different Phalanxes as a legacy, they are
inscribed in the registers of those Phalanxes ; they bear the same
interest there for him as for others, and cannot be abstracted
from him under any pretext, until his majority, when he disposes
of them himself.

A Phalanx may lose in a certain branch of endeavour, such as
a new factory, but, before engaging in the undertaking, it gives

1 88 Selections from the Works of Fourier

every shareholder notice of any risky enterprise, — manufacturing,
working a mine, or any other venture outside of the circle of
familiar and customary operations. The shareholder is free to
realise his shares, or to keep aloof from an enterprise in which he
has no confidence. He can, then, by retaining his shares, limit
himself to the usual chances ; in that case, he would obtain a full
dividend, even though the Phalanx should have a smaller income
through the failure of some novelty.

But a Phalanx en masse, directed by its Areopagus of experts,
its Patriarchs, its neighbouring Cantons, and other skilled people,
is not liable to imprudence like an individual, and where an
industrial undertaking is in any degree adventurous, care is had
to distribute the risk involved among a large number of Phalanxes,
to deliberate a long time, to obtain insurance, etc. As to any
risks from knavery, there can be none in Harmony.

I have remarked that every shareholder has the option of a
fixed interest or of a contingent dividend of the proceeds of the
year. The fixed interest has been estimated at S}i per cent. ;
the contingent or associative dividend ought to yield more ; thus
both the venturesome and the prudent may be satisfied. —

(U. U.,iii., 45Ï-453-)

The sense of ownership is the most powerful lever known, to
electrify the civilised ; one may, without exaggeration, estimate
the product of labour of an owner as double when compared with
servile or wage labour. / We see facts in proof of this every day ;
workmen, shockingly slow and awkward when working for wages,

1 The first savings, which are the most difficult, are admitted into the first
grade of the industrial category, at 30 per cent, interest up to the amount of
1,000 francs, which constitutes a share; the next succeeding savings will be
received up to 1,000 francs at the rate of 28 per cent. ; the third at 18 per
cent.

Why this enormous interest granted to the poor class ? because it is desired
to imbue them at the very start with a spirit of ownership and saving, which are
the source of good morals. By the end of the first month the value of the
work of each individual, man, woman, or child, is known ; and what each one's
share in the assets would be, deducting any advances made in food, clothing,
housing ; one-twelfth will be offered them, providing they wish to deposit in the
industrial bank at 30 per cent. ; all will agree to do so, for they are in possession
of all that is necessary for maintenance and amusement, — gratuitousyî^/w on
Sundays, meals with fare raised from the third to the second degree, balls,
etc.— (F. I. [Z], 7.)

Distribution 189

become phenomena of diligence as soon as they labour on their
own account.

The first problem, therefore, which ought to be studied in
political economy is ho w to transform all wage-earners, into
co-interested or associated progrietors.;3-(U. U., iii., 171.)

A poor man, in Harmony, if he own but part of a share, but
one-twentieth, is proprietor of the entire district, in participation^:^
he can say, " our lands, our palace, our mansions, our forests, our
works, our factories." All is his property; he^ is interested in the _
whole of the personal and landed possessions.

If, under existing conditions, a forest is deteriorated, a hundred
peasants will look upon it with indifference. The forest is simple
property ; it belongs exclusively to the lord ; they rejoice at what
may be prejudicial to him, and will secretly exert themselves to
increase the damage. If a torrent sweeps the land away, three-
fourths of the inhabitants own none along the banks, and laugh at
the havoc. Frequently, they rejoice to see the water ravage the Jsr
patrimony of a rich neighbour, whose property is simple, devoid v«^
of bonds of union with the body of the inhabitants, and inspiring -^ '
them with no interest whatever. ÇJ

In Harmony, where the interests are combined, and where each i -^
one is a partner, even if only to the extent of getting a share of \ ^
the proceeds allotted to labour, each one always desires the £ <
prosperity of the whole district ; each one suffers from the harm ^
which befals even the smallest portion of it. //Thus, already
through personal interest, good-will is general among the members,
and this results solely from their not being wage-workers but
co-interested ^/knowing that any loss in the proceeds, be it but
twelve groats, would take away five groats from those who, possess- f .-
ing neither money nor shares, have a part in the industrial
dividend, arranged, as has already been observed, in three classes
of dividends :

Five-twelfths for labour, four-twelfths for capital, three-twelfths
for talent. ^ *o

The dividend allotted to capital would give rise to jealousy j .
among the masses of the people, if it were difficult for them to \ F
share in it. — (U. U., iii., 517.) — ^ •

3

•^1

CHAPTER XIX

GUARANTEE OF THE MINIMUM

The first right is the right to sustain life, to eat when one is
hungry. This right is denied in civilisation by the philosophers,
and conceded by Jesus Christ in these words :

" Have ye never read what David did, when he had need, and
was an hungered, he, and they that were with him? How he
went into the house of God, and did eat the show-bread, which is
not lawful to eat but for the priests, and gave also to them which
were with him ?" y

^ Jesus by these words consecrates/the right of taking, when one
IS hungry, what is necessary, where it may be found ; and this
right imposes the duty upon the social body of securing to the
people a minimum ior maintenance ; — since civilisation deprives
it of the first natural right, that of the chase, fishing, gathering^
pasturage, it owes it an indemnity. / As long as this duty is not

\ recognised, there exists no social compact reciprocally agreed to ;
there is nothing but a league of oppression, a league of the minor-
ity which possesses, against the majority which does not possess

! the necessaries of lifp/and which, for that reason, tends to resume
the fifth right, toTorm clubs or internal leagues to despoil the
ossessors. — (F. I., 391.)

God has condemned man to earn his bread by the sweat of his
brow ; but he did not condemn us to be deprived of the labour
upon which our subsistence depends. 'We may, therefore, in
virtue of the rights of man, bid Philosophy and Civilisation not to
defraud us of the resource which God has bequeathed to us as a
last resort and punishment, and to guarantee us at least a right to
the species of labour to which we have been trained.

Guarantee of the Minimum 191

Labour is a cumulative right, resulting from the four cardinal
rights : the chase, fishing, gathering, and pasturage, which tend to
guarantee to us the active industry which Civilisation denies to
us, or which it grants us upon ridiculous conditions, such as
tributary labour, whose proceeds go to the master and not to the
labourer.

We shall only get the equivalent of the four cardinal rights in a
social order in which the poor man can say to his fellow-country-
man, to his native phalanx : "I was bom upon this land ; I
demand admission to all classes of work practised here, a
guarantee that I shall enjoy the fruit of my labour ; I demand
that the instruments requisite to prosecute this labour be advanced
to me, as well as maintenance, as a compensation for the right of j
stealing which Nature has given me." /Every Harmonian, no
matter how forlorn his condition, will always possess the right of
addressing such language to his native place, and his demand will
meet with a full acceptance.

It is only at such cost that humanity will really enjoy its rights : /
but in the present state, is it not insulting the poor to secure to i
them the rights of sovereignty, when they ask only the right to
labour for the pleasures of the idle ? _j

We have, then, spent centuries in wrangling over the rights of
man, without thinking of recognising the one which is the most
essential, that of labour, without which the others are nothing. —
(U. U., ii., 179.) _^

If the poor, the labouring class, are not happy in the associative
state, they will disturb it by malevolence, robbery, rebellion ; such
an order will fail in its object, which is to unite the passional
with the material, to conciliate characters, tastes, instincts, and
inequalities of every description. . ^

Having charge of the accounts, the Administration advances to '
every poor member clothing, food, housing, for a year. They
run no risk by this advance, because they know that the work the
poor man will accomplish, through attraction and as a scheme of \
pleasure, will exceed in amount the sum of the advances made J
him/and that, after the inventory is taken, the Phalanx will, in

192 Selections from the Works of Fourier

settling its accounts, find itself a debtor of the entire poor class
to whom it shall have given this advance of the minimum,
comprising :

Board at tables of the third class, five meals a day ;

A decent suit, and clothes for work and for occasions, as well
as all the implements for husbandry and manufacture ;

Individual lodgings, consisting of a room and a closet, and
admission to the public halls, the fetes of the third class, and to
plays in third class loges. — (U. U., iii., 445.)

But the first condition is to invent and organise a régime of
industrial attraction. Without this precaution, how can we
think of guaranteeing the poor man a minimum ? It would be
accustoming him to slothfulnessj/he readily persuades himself
that the minimum is a debt rather than an assistance, and he
therefore concludes to remain in idleness. That is what one
remarks in England, where the tax of 150 millions for the needy
serves only to increase their number ; so true is it that Civilisation
is but a vicious circle, even in its most laudable actions. What
jthe4)eople need is not alnas, but. ^qrk^ attractive enouglx.fbr . the^
multitude to wish to devote to it even the days and hours resêryfid-
for idleness.

If political science knew the secret of bringing this lever into
play, the minimum could really he secured by the absolute
cessation of idleness. The only ones remaining to^ be^jirûïided^
for would be the infirm ; a very light burden, and one not felt by
the social body, if it became opulent and, through attraction,
were reheved of slothfulness, and of indifferent labour, which is
almost as sterile as slothfulness. — (U. U., ii., 172.)

Whatever their degree of well-being, the people would soon
relapse into destitution if they multiplied without limit, like the
populace of civilisation, the swarms of England, France, Italy,
China, Bengal, etc. It is necessary, therefore, to discover a
means of security against the indefinite increase of population. ^ —
(N. M., 10.)

' See chap, xxiii., De la Poptdation,

CHAPTER XX

OF LUXURY AND SAVING

The forms and direction of luxury vary according to the social
periods. In barbarism, the fourth period, it is the body that is
adorned ; — an Algerian is decked in gold ; he appears to be a
Croesus ; but if we visit his hut, we find his furniture inferior to
that of a civilised artisan. The civilised, on the contrary, indulge
in luxury only in their buildings, furniture, banquets, equipages ;
in spite of their wealth, they are sometimes clad worse than their
valets.

It is evident, therefore, that luxury changes its form and
direction according to the different periods, and that, by passing
from the fifth period or civilisation to the more advanced periods,
the sixth, seventh, eighth, luxury might assume a direction entirely
different from those which civilised usages have given it.

The luxury of Harmony, or the eighth period, is corporative ;
each one is anxious to give brilliance to the groups and Series
which he favours. We see a germ of this inclination in certain
existing bodies ; — frequently a rich colonel will indulge in expense,
in order to give distinction to his regiment through music,
decorations ; and this commander will perhaps be very careless
regarding his own dress, though spending a great deal upon the
decoration of a thousand of his inferiors. — (U. U., iii., 536-537.)

Every corporate body is proud. Our customs have made pride
a capital vice. The passionate Series will make a capital virtue
of it, a civic virtue, from which they will derive, among other
advantages, that of stimulating the rivalry of the workers, and the
perfection of products.

If corporate bodies, even in civilisation, are averse to the
appearance of poverty, it may readily be conceived that in
Harmony they are averse even to the appearance of mediocrity.

I N

194 Selections from the Works of Fourier

The government of a Phalanx furnishes every group with all that
is necessary to secure extreme neatness ; but the wealthy members
add to this according to their vanity and their generosity.

Lucullus is captain of the group of red bigarreaux, and Scaurus
of the group of brown bigarreaux. These two rivals, in order to
sustain the rivalry, commit just such follies as does a prince for
his villa. They have waggons and sheds constructed for the
groups, more elegant than the paraphernalia of our operas.
Each of them has a magnificent pavilion erected, at his own
expense, in the centre of the rows of cherry-trees, in place of the
modest shed which had been provided by the government.

That is why a sect or passionate Series is always resplendent with
ornaments and equipages, whether at work or in pageants. These
gifts of the wealthy members are accepted, not as favours, but as
a liberality which conduces to the relief of the corporation and of
its industrial branch, to the maintenance of its rivalry with other
Phalanxes. — (U. U., iii., S36-537.)

A like emulation will prevail among the Series of every
description. It is sufficient for a rich man to make any of them
shine, to incite all the neighbouring districts to vie with it in some
shape, if not in luxury, at least in neatness, in perfection. This
mania will seize all people of great means ; it will cause luxury to
be expended upon labour and workshops, so repulsive to-day by
their poverty, coarseness, and filth.

This pomp of labour will be an industrial saving^ for it will help
to inspire in children, as well as in their parents, a love for the
exercise of productive industry. Then everyone, instead of
employing his superfluous wealth in constructing private
mansions, which would be useless in Harmony, will speml his
money in building fine workshops, fine terraces, fine sheds, for
his favourite sects.
This effect, which is general in the mechanism of the passionate
( Series, gives luxury a productive direction. Luxury in Harmony
is applied to labour, the sciences, the arts, and notably to the
kitchen. Luxury conspires, along with a number of other causes,
to render these occupations attractive to the child as well as the

(

/

Of Luxury ana Saving 195

adult. The child will, in its infancy, take pleasure in going
through all the workshops of its Phalanx, in initiating itself in the
work of every miniature workshop, acquiring dexterity, strength,
and practical knowledge, and becoming, however rich he may be,
a producer qualified to do the actual work as well as to direct
it. — (U. U., iii., 546.)

The luxury of the Harmonians amounts to next to nothing in
various departments to which we uselessly devote enormous sums.
In order to house Lucullus, Rome has to construct a huge palace :
he will be contented in Harmony with three or four rooms
because, in this new order, intercourse through the Series is too
active to allow one time to stay in one's dwelling.

Everyone is always in the Seristeries, or public halls, the
workshops, the fields, the stables; they do not remain at home
except in case of sickness or for a rendezvous ; it suffices, then,
to have a bedroom and a boudoir; the richest person's apart-
ment, accordingly, has hardly more than three rooms.

Courtesy in Harmony differs absolutely from ours; they doJ/A
not pay useless visits, which would consume valuable time ; they
see each other at meals, in the industrial groups, on 'Change, at
evening entertainments. An outsider visits his friends at their ^
industrial gatherings. Do you wish to pay Lucullus a visit
flattering to him ? Seek him in the midst of the cherryists, in the
group of the red bigarreaux, whose captain he is, in the orchard
where he is at work and in his working-clothes ; at the close of
the session, you will breakfast or lunch with him and his group,
in the superb mansion built, at his expense, and on the façade of
which the group has had the following inscription engraved :

Ex munificentia Luculli^ Cerasorum clarissimi sectatoris.

It is here that he lavishes his pomp, and that he loves to excite
admiration for the work of his colleagues, over whom he presides.

Thus the usages and the policy of Harmony bring to bear upon
productive industry all the brilliancy, all the aid, of that luxury
which to-day is attached only to unproductive functions, leaving
agriculture and the workshop in the most abject wretchedness. —
(U. U., iii., 539-54 1 •)

S^ 196 Selections from the Works of Fourier

We shall find among the Harmonians a policy totally contrary
to our ideas of commerce, which promote waste and the changes
of fashion, under the pretext of maintaining the workman. But
in Harmony the workman, the agriculturist, and the consumer,
are one and the same person ; he has no interest in practising
extortion upon himself, as in civilisation, where everyone strives
to promote industrial disturbance occasioned by changes of
fashion, and to manufacture poor goods or poor furniture, in order

!^ to double consumption, to enrich the merchants at the expense

ft^ of the people and of real wealth.

'^ They will calculate, in Harmony, that changes of fashion,

"~j defective quality, or imperfect workmanship, would cause a loss

"^ of five hundred francs per individual, for the poorest of the

Harmonians possesses a wardrobe of clothes for all seasons, and

is accustomed to using furniture, trappings, and appurtenances,

for work or pleasure, of a fine quality.

They do not calculate thus in civilisation, because that society,
in industry as in everything, is inclined to duplicity or internal
warfare. Its industry is a veritable civil war of the producer
against the idler, whom he tries to plunge into ruin ; and of the
merchant against the social bcdy, which he incites to dupery.
The science which applauds this conflict resembles a senseless
master who should incite his domestics to break quantities of
dishes and furniture, for the benefit of the manufacturers. Every-
thing is but political madness, as long as the interest of the
individual is not bound up with the interest of the mass.—

(U. U, 575.)

• Let us refute a strange sophism of the economists who maintain

/ that the unlimited increase of manufactured products is an in-

( crease of wealth ; the consequence of that would be, that if every

person could be induced to use four times as many clothes as he

does, the social world would attain to four times its present wealth

in manufactured products.

No truth whatever in this ; their calculation is as false on this
point as it is on the desirability of unlimited increase of popula-
tion, or food for cannon. Real wealth, in Harmony, is based u^ on :

Of Luxury and Saving 197

The greatest possible consumption of varieties of food ;

The smallest possible consumption of varieties of clothing and
furniture.

Variety, applied to both kinds of consumption, demands the
maximum on one side and the minimum on the other, all
harmony being based upon direct and inverse action of
impulses.

This principle has escaped civilised economists, who, likening
manufactures to agriculture, have believed that excessive manu-
facturing and consumption of goods is a measure of the increase
of wealth. The speculations of Harmony upon this point are the
reverse ; it desires, in clothing and in furniture, infinite varietj ,
but the smallest consumption.

When I was little practised in the calculations of attraction,
and I began to balance the portions and the results, in every
branch of industry, I was greatly astonished to find that, strictly
analysed, there was little attraction for manufacturing labour, and
that the associative order, while creating agricultural allurements
in unlimited quantities, would develop only an insignificant
amount of manufacturing allurements. This result seemed in- J
consistent to me, opposed to what necessity demanded. Little
by little, I perceived that, in accordance with the principle of
attractions proportioned to ends, God ought to have restricteds.
the allurements of manufacture, by reason of the excellence of 1
associative industry, which raises every manufactured article to \
the acme of perfection, so that furniture and clothing attain I
prodigious durability, become everlasting. J

Shoes made by a fashionable shoemaker of Paris will go into
holes without fail after a month's wear ; and this is as it should
be ; for that shoemaker would compromise his art, if he should
furnish common people who go about on foot. The shoes coming
from the workshops of a Phalanx will be in good condition at the
end of ten years, because two conditions, unknown in the present
order, will have been fulfilled :

Excellence of material and of workmanship ;

Fitness for its purpose and (or durability.

V

198 Selections front the Works of Fourier

These details, sordid in appearance, become sublime when one
considers that they are capable of securing an annual saving of
400 milliards in wearing apparel, and 2,000 milliards in the total
loss which would be incurred if the Harmonians failed to take
combined saving into their calculations.

With them, economy becomes bon ton^ through the influence of
the combined action of the four tones. The Harmonians, though
liberal and fond of elegance, have a passion, as being ban ton^ for
savings which we regard as niggardliness, sordid avarice, such as
the picking up of a pin or using the other end of a match. They
will treat you profusely to the finest dishes, and regard you as a
vandal if you waste a cherry-seed or the skin of an apple.

With us, as a matter of propriety, one writes to the minister

^ o upon paper of ample dimensions, three-fourths of which is useless,

and the minister, by way of fiscal parade, replies with two lines

upon a sheet a yard long. A contrary spirit will prevail among

the Harmonians, and, in writing to the minister, honesty will

>^^ demand that the smallest quantity of paper possible shall be used.

";^^ To fail to do that would be to offend the minister, to suppose him

•§. 1 indifferent to small savings, which in Harmony are the guarantee

^ ' of social happiness, not only on account of the annual gain of 2,000

^n~ milliards, but on account of maintaining the equilibrium between

services and attractions. This equilibrium would be destroyed, if

an excessive consumption of manufactured articles were to divert

people from the pleasant agricultural sessions, and oblige them to

take hours from such labour and devote them to manufacture,

whose allurements are limited in quantity, while agricultural

Attraction is unlimited.

In an order in which all classes will be linked by ties of
affection, potentates themselves will be found to set the fashion
in that economy of clothes which we characterise as a sordid spirit,
and which is the real spirit of God, whose first quality is the
economy of means. God does not waste an atom in the
mechanism of the universe, and everywhere where there is an
absence of general economy, we may say there is an absence of
the spirit of God. — (U. U., iii., 209-210.)

CHAPTER XXI

OF THE FUSION OF CLASSES

There are sixteen classes in civilisation, not including slavery ; !
Laucorporative hatred is found prevailing between all these classesj j
the civilised order with all its talk about the charming fraternity
of intercourse, and about morality, creates only a labyrinth of
discords, which may be distinguished into :

An ascending scale of hatred;

A descending scale of contempt.

If we see in civilisation some gleams of a fusion of castes, as in
Naples, where the nobility patronise the lazzaroni ; in Spain,
where the rich clergy patronise the beggars; this alliance of
extreme castes is only a source of evil, the civilised state creating
only subversive and mischievous unions, — whether in love, where
intimate intercourse between men of the higher classes and
women of the people constitutes only germs of confusion, through
the birth of bastards, or through unequal marriages, which are the
cause of dissensions in families ; or in ambition, where the wealthy
class does not come into close contact with the people, except to
manipulate some intrigue baneful to the public peace, affairs of
party, leagues for oppression. — (N. M., 324-325.)

It is among children that friendship can assume full sway : in 1
them it is no t opposed by cupidity, by love, or by interest in thej
family. / Friendship in the early years would confound all ranks,
did not parents intervene by cultivating sentiments of pride in
their children. _

In the period of adolescence, love steps in to confound ranks
and puts a king upon a level with the shepherdess whom he woos.
We have, then, even under existing conditions, germs of fusion

'

i

2CX) Selections from the Works of Fourier

of the unequal classes^we find them even in ambition: it
accustoms a superior to mingle familiarly with his inferior, in
party concerns, in electoral intrigueSy/The Scipios and the Catos
have been known to meet a boor and press his hand in order to
gain his vote ; to what mean acts do the English lords resort, to
capture a "rotten borough," pajdng dearly for it at the same
Jjine !

We have, then, in the present state, many germs tending to
initiate the fusion of classes, but by ways that are abject, by
sordid cupidity. /We already see, through these base means, a
closer mingling between people belonging to classes averse to
each other^^^uch intercourse will be rendered twenty times easier
when people will use noble means, be actuated by genuine lies
of affection. — (N. M., 278.)

All liberty would become a germ of dissension, so long as the

high and the low should hate each other as they do to-day./ The

/ sole means of uniting them passionally, of interesting them in

; each other, is to unite them in industry. /iThe farmers who have

i a share in the harvest wish the portion allotted to the master to

j be plentiful, so that theirs may increase in proportionyto the

^yield ; for if the master gets little grain on account of the poor

harvest, the farmers get little when the social distribution is

made.

The secret of the unity of interest^ therefore, lies in Association.

/ The three classes, being associated and united in interest, would

forget their hatred ;/and that the more readily because the

W opportunities for attractive labour would put an end to the

Î drudgery of the people and the disdain of the rich for inferiors,

il whose labours, now become enticing, they would share. There

\i would be an end to the envy with which the poor regard the idle,

j who reap without having sown : there would no longer be any

I idlers, or poor, and social antipathies would disappear with the

y causes which produced them^^y^U. U., ii., 173.)

r That which will charm a rich man in the associative state will

j be his ability to repose perfect confidence in all who surround

j! him, to forget the cunning with which one must be armed at all

r

Of the Fusion of Classes 201

points in the relations of civilisation, and yet be unable to escape j
dupery. In the Phalanx, a rich man, going in with unlimited
confidence, will have no snares to fear, no importunate dem ands
to trouble him, because/the Harmonians, provided with a suffi^
cient minimum^ have nothing in the way of personal interest to
ask of anyone, assured as they are of obtaining, in every branch
of attractive industry, a compensation proportioned totheir labour, ;
their capacity, and their capital, if they have any. /One of their
prized possessions is the absence of patronage, the certainty that
all patronage would be useless to their rivals as well aS; to them-
selves, that compensation and advancement will be equitably
distributed, in spite of all intrigues.

Intimacies among those who are unequal will, therefore, be very
readily formed in Harmony : the reunions will allure people by the
gaiety, the well-being, the civility, and the integrity of the lower jè
classes, by the elegance of the industrial arrangements, and the 3 '
harmony of the members./The poorest will be proud of their
new condition, of the high destiny of their phalanx, which will
change the aspect of the world ; they will be anxious to distin-
guish themselves from the civilised by a probity, a justice, which
will be the only avenues of profit. /They will in a short time have
adopted the spirit and the manners that are assumed by those
whom a stroke of fortune transports suddenly from a cottage to a
mansion ; and this hon ton will be very readily appropriated by
the lower class of the first phalanx, if it be taken from regions
where the people are refined, such as the environs of Tours and
of Paris. ^ ^

It will be partly through their hatred of the masses in civilisa-
tion, that the rich will from the very start grow enamoured^of
those of the Phalanx ;/they will regard them as men of a different
species, and cultivate familiarity with them, through increased

1 Let us take a parvenu installed in a mansion ; these parvenus are not
stimulated by a frank and friendly criticism, such as will prevail in the in-
dustrial groups ; they are, on the contrary, flattered, deceived by all who
surround them ; this sycophancy greatly retards their refinement. But in the
associative order, where everyone acquires a taste for ôon torty the people, by
the aid of friendly irony, will be able to attain polished manners much
more rapidly than parvenus, to whom no one dares to address a remonstrance.

202 Selections front the Works of Fourier

horror of civilised grossness and deceit. Th^ will forget their
j^tpfinn flf^ r eadily among the .people in Hâjraon^ as They do
to-day with the polished grisettes, who, nevertheless, belong to the
common people, but assume fine manners.

I calculate, therefore, that fusion will be inaugurated from the
second month ; that the wealthy class will be the first to feel
indignant at this principle of civilised policy : ihtrt mttst be many
poor people in order that there may be some rich ones ; a principle
A that will very soon be replaced by this one : th^ poor must be in
p\ the enjoyment of graduated ea^e, in order that the rich may be
^ [jiappy.

Let us remember that one of the principal means of effecting
this fusion will be the progress of children in natural education, or
the incitement to labour and study through pleasure, without any
impetus from parents or teachers. — (N. M., 279-280.)

CHAPTER XXII

OF DUTIES TOWARDS ANIMALS

Animals are happy in Harmony through the gentleness and the
unity of the methods employed in managing them, the choice and
the variety of food, the care of the passionate members, who observe
all the precautions calculated to improve the various species : none
of this attention can be bestowed in our brutal civilisation, which
cannot make even the stables comfortable. We may assert with-
out exaggeration that thé asses in Harmony will be much better
housed and better kept than the peasants of the beautiful land of
France. — (U. U., iv., 92.)

Is it not sinking beneath the level of the lower animals, to ignore
the consideration we owe to their instincts ? They are profitable
to us only in so far as we secure their well-being. The Little Hordes
exercise supreme police power in regard to the animal kingdom :
whoever should ill-treat quadruped, bird, insect, either by using them
roughly or by making them suffer in the shambles, would be
amenable to the divan of the Little Hordes ; and, no matter what
his age, he would find himself arraigned before a tribunal of
children, as being inferior in reason to the children themselves.
For it is a maxim in Harmony, that, animals being profitable only
in so far as they are well treated, he who abuses these creatures,
unable to avenge themselves, is himself more of a beast than the
beast that he persecutes. — (U. U., iv., 155.)

1 In our perfectible civilisation, people strive to refine upon the sufferings
of animals, saying why are they oxen, why are they chickens, why are they
fish ? ^ The butcher drags them by the aid of the lash and the bites of
dogs into shambles reeking with blood, the smell of which infuriates them,
and makes them suffer death by anticipation. Every cook will burst out
laughing if he is asked to kill or stupefy a fish before scaling and opening it.

204 Selections from the Works of Fourier

A truth which is quite unknown up to the present is that
domestic animals are creatures capable of regulated harmony,
and that their training cannot become profitable to man except in
so far as they are raised in accordance with that method. Here
is a scheme for colossal enrichment ; it is well worthy of the
attention of an age which, more than any other, gauges everything
by its weight in gold. — (U. U., iv., 84.)

Among quadrupeds, there is scarcely a twentieth which ally
themselves to us, excluding the negative species, such as the stag,
the deer, the roe, which, without being useful to us, contribute
to our pleasures ;

Among birds, scarcely a hundredth allied to us.

Among insects, scarcely a millionth.

It is, then, a creation subversive of the laws of harmony ; allied
to those laws only by slender ties, forming exceptions, or the
transition between the present evil and the future good. These
useful animals are an illustration of the system which will fully
prevail in the approaching creations, where at least seven-eighths of
the quadrupeds and birds will be found to be the allies of man, —
such as the bee, the cochineal, the kermès, the silk-worm are
to-day. — (M., 77.)

The series of Harmonian butchers will refine upon the precautions which may
spare animals the idea of death. They will take care to have the slaughter-
house cleansed by a conduit and perfumed ; the animals will be fastened in a
body, so that the group of slaughterers may strike them simultaneously : they
will, in short, take all the precautions which may spare them real or imaginary
suffering. The details of these attentions would appear ridiculous in the eyes
of the French, who everywhere delight in torturing animals, — quadrupeds,
birds, fish, even to butterflies. The affection of the Harmonians for the brute
creation lends great prominence to the duties of a butcher intelligent in manag-
ing them, and this calling is classed in the first rank in necessity. — (U. U.,
iv., 519.)

CHAPTER XXIII

OF THE EQUILIBRIUM OF POPULATION

Among the inconsistencies and the blunders of modern policy,
there is nothing more shocking than the neglect to legislate upon
the equilibrium of population, upon the proportion of the number
of consumers to the productive forces. It were vain to discover
the means of increasing the product four or even five-fold, if the
human race were condemned to multiply as it does to-day ; con-
stantly to accumulate a mass of people, three or four times as
great as that to which it ought to be limited in order to maintain
the graduated comfort of the different classes.

In every age, the equilibrium of population has been the
stumbling-block, or one of the stumbling-blocks, of civilised policy.
Alrea<|y the ancients, who had so many uncultivated regions
around them which could be colonised, found no other remedy
for the exuberance of population than to tolerate the exposure
and destruction of infants, the killing of superfluous slaves, — which
was resorted to by the virtuous Spartans, — or having them perish
in naumachies for the amusement of Roman citizens, proud of
the fine name of free men, but very far removed from filling the
rôle of just men.

More recently, we have seen modern politicians confess their
discomfiture regarding the problem of population. I have quoted
Stewart, Wallace, and Malthus, the only writers worthy of atten-
tion upon this subject, because they acknowledge the helplessness
of science. Their vrise views upon the vicious circle of population
are stifled by economic jugglers, who shove aside this problem as
they do so many others. Stewart, more honest, has treated it
very well in his hypothesis of an island, which, being well culti-

2o6 Selections from the Works of Fourier

- - - - ■

vated, was able to support i,ooo inhabitants of unequal fortune,
in comfort ; but, says he, if the population swells to 3,000 and
4,000 ; to 10,000 and 20,000, how is it to be supported ?

The answer given is, that colonisation must be resorted to,
multitudes of people sent away; this is to quibble with the
question ; for if the entire globe were inhabited, peopled to the
full, whither could the swarms of colonists be sent ?

The sophists answer, that the globe is not all peopled, and will
not be so very soon ; that is one of the subterfuges of the Owen
sect, which, promising happiness, evades the problem of the
equilibrium of population, and says that it will take at least 300
years for the earth to be peopled to its full capacity. They are
mistaken; it will take only 150 years. However that be, it is
retreating before a problem to relegate its solution to the future,
300 years hence, and without guaranteeing that the solution will be
found then. Besides, granting that it would be 300 years before
the earth were fully peopled, such a theory would still be a very
imperfect one, — the theory of a happiness or pretended happiness
which should disappear at the end of 300 years through a defect
in social policy, through the exuberance of population.

Now, as it is certain that this scourge will not tarry 300 years
and that it will appear at the end of 150 years, — under the
conditions of universal peace and general plenty which will be
brought about by the associative state, — the scheme of this new
order must provide very effective means to prevent excess of
population, to reduce the number of inhabitants of the globe to a
just proportion between means and needs — to about 5 milliards,
without the danger of seeing the population increase to 6, 7, 8,
10, 12 milliards; an exuberance which would be inevitable should
the entire globe introduce the civilised régime.

Nature, in the associative state, sets up four dikes against excess
of population; these are :

1° The vigour of women.

2° The gastrosophic régime.

3° Phanerogamic morals.

4° Integral exercise.

Of the Equilibrium of Population 207

1° Vigour : we see the eflfect of this now among women of the
city; out of four that are barren, three are robust, while the
delicate women are fertile to an excessive and vexatious degree.
The barren ones are generally those whom one would have
believed the most likely to bear children. It will be answered
that in the country the robust women are not barren ; I know it,
and it is an additional evidence in favour of the natural method,
which operates by a linking of the four means applied in corn-
bination, and not by the isolated employment of any one of the
four.

2^ The gastrosophic régime : Whence this difference in fecundity
in favour of robust peasants ? It is the result of an abstemious
life, of coarse food, limited to vegetables. Women in the cities
have delicate fare, — that is one means towards sterility, which
will become more powerful in Harmony, where every person is a
refined gastronome. Thus combining the extreme vigour of the
Harmonian women with the delicate fare which they will enjoy,
we have already two means of promoting sterility. I pass briefly
over objections the examination of which would fill an article
larger than this; it must be borne in mind that this is a
summary. *^

3° Phanerogamic morals»^

4° Intep'ol exercise distributed over all the physical faculties,
by means of short sessions and change of occupation. No
attention has ever been paid to the effects produced upon
puberty and fecundity by difference in bodily exercise ; the con-
trasts in this particular are striking: we see villagers attaining
puberty much later than residents of cities or children of rich
country people. If bodily exercise is integral, extended alternately
and proportionately over all parts of the body, the organs of
generation are developed^ later ; we have a proof of this in the

^ For the rest, after three generations of Harmony, two-thirds of the
women will be unfruitful, as is the case with all flowers which, by the re-
finements of cultivation, have been raised to a high degree of perfection.
— (F. I., 56a)

^ See chap, v., Of the Condition of Women,

2o8 Selections from the Works of Fourier

children of princes, who marry at fourteen years of age, while
villagers are often not marriageable at sixteen.

When the four means, set forth above, shall be employed in
combination^ the chances of fecundity and sterility will be the
reverse of what they are at present ; that is to say, that instead of
excess of population, the only thing to be feared will be a deficit;
and measures will be taken to stimulate that fecundity which
every prudent man dreads to-day. The man of sense does not
wish to have more than a few children, so as to assure them the
fortune which is indispensable to happiness ; the man devoid of
sense and given over to carnal indulgence, begets children by the
dozen, like Feth-Ali, Shah of Persia, who excused himself upon
the ground that // is God who sends them^ and there are never too
many honest men, God wishes, on the contrary, to limit their
number proportionately to the means of subsistence; and the
social man lowers himself to the level of insects by bringing into
the world a swarm of children who will be reduced to devouring
each other through excess of numbers. They will not consume
each other bodily like insects, fish, and wild beasts ; but they
will devour each other politically, through rapine, wars, and the
perfidies of perfectible civilisation.— (N. M., 335-338.)

it*

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